CH. XXXI. WOODCOCKS — SNIPES. 165 



must in most instances transport the newly-hatched 

 birds in this manner, as their nests are generally 

 placed in dry heathery woods, where the young 

 would inevitably perish unless the old ones 

 managed to carry them to some more favourable 

 feeding -ground. Both young woodcocks and 

 snipes are peculiarly helpless birds, as indeed are 

 all the waders, until their bills have hardened, and 

 they have acquired some strength of wing and leg. 

 Unlike the young of partridges and some other 

 birds, who run actively as soon as hatched, and 

 are able to fly well in a very short time, wood- 

 cocks, snipes, and waders while young are very 

 helpless, moving about with a most uncertain 

 and tottering gait, and unable to take wing until 

 they are full grown. Their growth is, however, 

 extremely rapid. 



Snipes, redshanks, and several other birds of 

 this genus are hatched and brought up on the same 

 kind of ground on which they feed ; but wood- 

 cocks, in this country at least, are generally hatched 

 far from the marshes, and therefore the old birds 

 must, of necessity, carry their helpless young to 

 these places, or leave them to starve in the dry 

 heather : nor is the food of the woodcock of such 

 a nature that it could be taken to the young from 

 the swamps in any sufficient quantity. Neither 



