48 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



and the grass and clover are springing green again in the 

 stubbled fields; when the corn is ripe and ready to be 

 husked then, and not until then, can the sportsman 

 take the field with dog and gun, restrained by no twinge 

 of conscience, forbidden by no law; and he who has waited 

 all these days is well repaid for waiting, for the wood- 

 cock is altogether a different bird from what it is when 

 found in the summer months; its dress is richer in its 

 coloring, its body fast gaining that rotundity which 

 comes only when free from the worry of moulting and 

 finding food where food is scarce; its flight shows far 

 more vigor, and the whistle of its wings is sharper, 

 louder, clearer than before. 



This whistle is another of the peculiarities of the 

 woodcock which are so puzzling. It does not come from 

 the throat and bill, as would naturally be supposed, but 

 from the pinions as they cleave the air. I have held a 

 woodcock by the legs, and heard this whistle as it flut- 

 tered to escape, and to satisfy myself that the noise was 

 made by its wings, have grasped it by the neck and bill, 

 and still that whistle; but when the wings stopped beat- 

 ing, the whistle ceased. The woodcock possesses vocal 

 powers of no mean order, as its love-songs during its 

 breeding-season testify; bat the whistle when the bird is 

 flushed is not the result of vocal effort. 



Examine the pinions, and you will find the first three 

 feathers altogether different from the others shorter 

 and narrower and in this difference lies that mysterious 

 whistle. It takes great force to start the woodcock in its 

 perpendicular flight, and the resistance offered to its 

 wings must be immense, since its body keeps about the 

 same relative position, with bill pointed downward, that 

 it has when its course is horizontal, and the air rushing 

 through the first three feathers of each pinion makes the 

 whistle, which ceases when the angle of resistance is 



