104 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



not close and the wild goose was the one bird 

 during that fowling week I wanted to get. 



I have never seen the woodcock feeding, but one 

 winter evening in black frost we stood in the west 

 park for a few minutes by some spruce firs growing 

 at the side of a chalk pit. Suddenly a bird wheeled 

 down swiftly from the hazel coppice just behind us 

 its wings fully extended and clipt out clearly even 

 in the dusk and settled a few yards off among the 

 mole-hills. Its back was turned to us, and in the few 

 seconds it squatted there we wondered what it could 

 be. It rose, and then I caught sight of a long bill. 

 No doubt it had come down to try the open mossy 

 park, and finding the soil iron-bound even among 

 the lately - thrown mole - hills, sped to other food- 

 ground. We can see so little of even the habits of 

 these feathered and furred people of the blind half 

 of tune that any glimpse of them awake and at home 

 is something to value. The woodcock in the winter 

 day gives me the idea of an owlish bird, dazed and 

 random hi its flight. But in the dusk it rouses to 

 quick life. There was an alertness, a keenness, about 

 this bird that wheeled down hi front of us which I can- 

 not associate with the woodcock of day. I shall not 

 forget the look of those full stretched-out wings, 

 strong and noiseless, as the bird pitched. Even in 

 that vague light it was a delightful spectacle of the 

 feat of flight. This bird, not being scared, was noise- 

 less both in pitching and rising. A woodcock that 



