BIBD-ALTBUISM 67 



the broods already upon the water there seemed to be a 

 constant scuffle going on amongst the male birds, and 

 upon inquiring of the intelligent keeper who accompanied 

 me, and without whom, indeed, it would not have been 

 safe for a stranger to walk amongst the sitting birds, he 

 told me that every year this went on, the male birds 

 fighting with each other in the endeavour to obtain 

 cygnets from other broods to add to their own, the con- 

 sequence to the poor little cygnets themselves being that 

 numbers of them were killed in the turmoil created in this 

 strange process. 



T. A. AYSCOUGH. 



September 14, 1918. 



WOODCOCKS AND THEIR YOUNG 



I believe the fact of woodcocks carrying their young 

 when small to feeding-grounds is so well authenticated 

 as hardly to be worth recording, but the following in- 

 cident which I last week witnessed seems to me to be. 

 I was walking through a wood here a man immediately 

 behind when we nearly trod upon three young wood- 

 cocks under a large oak-tree. They flew away and 

 pitched some little distance off. A fluttering went on on 

 the ground, when the old woodcock slowly rose, carrying 

 in her claws a young one more than half as large as 

 herself ! It was so heavy she could hardly carry it. She 

 glided gently down, perhaps fifteen yards off, put it in 

 some dried fern-leaves and grass, and flew away after the 

 others. She seemed to wrap her tail round it, holding it 

 firmly in her claws. I was within a yard of her when 

 she started, and was amazed at the performance. 



E. B. DUBNFOED. 



May 24, 1917. 



NOTE. The woodcock seems to vary in her choice of 

 perambulator, but as a rule she carries her young pressed 

 close to the body between the thighs. As Mr. Coward 



