264 SHORE BIRDS 



is usually found in the forests adjacent to the streams, 

 muddy from flowing through rich alluvial bottoms. 

 The timber is walnut, beech, and other nut-bearing 

 trees ; oaks, maples, and the picturesque sycamores 

 with wide-spreading white branches, and many wil- 

 lows. The undergrowth is heavy. Tall horse-weeds 

 grow in many places higher than one's head, and 

 many vines and creepers, from the slender morning- 

 glory to the larger grape, are tangled in a way to make 

 the walking difficult. In the hills and mountains of 

 Pennsylvania, New York, and New England the cocks 

 are found beside brighter, purer w^aters in the alder 

 swamps and places where the beautiful rhododendron 

 flourishes. Many springs and brooks in the haunts of 

 the ruffed-grouse water areas of boring ground often of 

 very limited dimension. 



In the South the cocks are found in the wet woods, 

 but as I have already observed, there is a harbor of 

 refuge in the cane. Charming is the ramble over any 

 of these grounds, magnificent the game. Great is the 

 joy of the sportsman who in the autumn stops a plump, 

 gray cock as he goes whistling through the brake. 



During very dry seasons large tracts of woodcock 

 ground become uninhabitable, there being no longer 

 any places soft enough for boring ; at such times 

 the birds cannot feed and must movet Should there be 

 a small lake or pond in the vicinity with woods ad- 

 jacent, and springs not affected by the dry weather, the 

 woodcock will there congregate in vast numbers. I 

 once set out from Lake Forest, a village north of 

 Chicago, with a sportsman who resided there, our des- 

 tination being a duck club at Fox Lake. We went in 



