84 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



time of their breeding vary according to the location in which 

 they are found. In Louisiana and Florida eggs haVe been found 

 early in February. In the Middle West they do not commence 

 until about the middle of March. The nest usually is a loose 

 structure of grass placed among the leaves in a more or less 

 hilly place near the feeding grounds where it will be out of 

 danger of rising water. At Buzzard's Roost, I accidentally 

 found one in the edge of the timber, on the point of a hill 

 next to Fall Creek. The eggs are buffy in color, mottled or 

 spotted with darker shades, and generally are four in number. 

 From the instant the young leave the shell they are able to 

 feed themselves, but it is said that the mother bird carries them 

 to their feeding grounds. 



The courtship on the part of the male woodcock is a most 

 interesting performance. Mr. Eugene P. Bicknell gives a very 

 interesting account in the Auk, July, 1885, of the flight of one 

 which he witnessed on such an occasion. He says, "The bird 

 would start up from amid the shrubbery, with a tremulous, 

 whirring sound of the wings, rising with spiral course into the 

 air. The spiral varied considerably in pitch, sometimes ex- 

 panding to sweep far out over- the neighboring fields, where 

 a single evolution would carry the bird upward almost to the 

 extremity of its flight, which was sometimes over the point of 

 departure. The rapid trilling sound with which it started off, 

 as woodcocks do, continued without interruption during the 

 ascent but gradually became more rapid, and as the bird 

 neared its greatest height, passed into pulsations of quivering 

 sound. Each pulsation was shorter and faster than the last, 

 and took the tremolo to a higher pitch, sounding like a throb- 

 bing whirl of fine machinery or suggesting in movement the 

 accelerating, rythmic sound of a railway car gradually 

 gaining full speed after a stop. At last, when it 

 seemed as if greater rapidity was not possible, the vertex of 

 the flight would be reached, and descending with increasing 

 swiftness, the bird would break forth into an irregular chip- 

 pering, almost a warble, the notes sounding louder and more 

 liquid as it neared the earth. Suddenly there would be silence, 

 and a small, dark object would dart past through the dusk, 

 down amid the shrubbery. Then at silent intervals, a single 



