WOODCOCK. 329 



seat for the Woodcock." Certain localities seem to have a 

 peculiar charm for it, and if the original occupier be shot, a 

 new tenant is almost certain to be found there. So close do 

 they lie that but for the black glittering eye they might often 

 be passed unobserved ; and Mr. Gould records an instance of 

 a bird being seen to alight and half cover itself with dead 

 leaves before the beaters ^ame up, nor did it attempt to rise 

 until flushed by a dog. 



Towards night it sallies forth, whirling and twisting in a 

 manner very different from its usual owl-like flight by day, 

 pursuing a well-known track through the cover to its feeding- 

 ground. These tracks or open glades in woods, are sometimes 

 called cockshoots and cock-roads, and it is in these places 

 that nets, called road-nets, were formerly suspended for their 

 capture, but the gun is now the more common means of 

 obtaining them. A few are still caught with nooses of horse- 

 hair, set up about the springs or soft ground where the birds 

 leave the marks of the perforations, or borings made with 

 their beaks. Common earth-worms appear to be the food 

 most eagerly sought after. Montagu and other ornithologists 

 have borne testimony to the almost incredible quantity of 

 earth-worms which a single Woodcock, in confinement, has 

 been known to consume in one night ; and Mr. Edmond 

 Crawshay informed Mr. Hancock that a man was kept con- 

 stantly employed during the day in obtaining the supply 

 necessary for a brood of three of these birds. Mr. F. Nor- 

 gate, who took home a slightly winged Woodcock, and 

 observed its habits, assured Mr. Stevenson that the flex- 

 ibility of the upper mandible of the bill was go great that it 

 more resembled the writhings of a worm than a beak, and 

 this voluntary upward movement, added to the exquisite 

 sense of touch possessed by the anterior portion of the beak, 

 assists the bird in obtaining its food. Sir K. Payne-Gallwey 

 states that he has observed that Woodcocks have a curious 

 habit' of placing near the edge of the nest a little bank of 

 moss, on which they will at times deposit worms as they 

 bring them, that the young birds may learn to pick them out 

 as they quickly glide from their view. He also says that 



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