CHAPTER XVII. 



WOODCOCK AND SNIPE. 



THESE woodcocks are undoubtedly migratory, passing 

 the winter in the genial South, and the summer in the 

 North ; they are also nocturnal, doing all their traveling by 

 night. From the peculiar formation of the eye, their sight 

 is much better after the *sun has declined. Strong light is 

 their detestation, for, judging from their conduct when 

 flushed in the noonday glare, their optics are then of little 

 use ; hence the idea that is so frequently current that this 

 bird is stupid. Such is not the case, but quite the reverse, 

 experience having taught me that they are as capable as 

 any other of availing themselves of artifices and hiding- 

 places that are likely to throw out the dog, or shelter them 

 from molestation. This bird, although undoubtedly of the 

 same family, must not be confounded with the European, 

 which is colored differently in plumage and much larger in 

 size. The woodcock killed in England generally measure 

 about fourteen and a half inches in length, and weigh from 

 fourteen to seventeen ounces, although one is reported to 

 have been killed at Narborough of the enormous weight of 

 twenty- seven ounces. I do not here give all the minutiaB of 

 the English bird, for it is not of it that I wish to speak, 

 but only sufficiently to show that there is a marked differ- 

 ence between it and its namesake of the American conti- 

 nent, whose peculiarities I will, so far as memory serves me, 

 attempt to describe, for the benefit of the young sports- 

 man. Length, from point of bill to end of tail, eleven to 

 twelve inches; across the wings, nine and a half inches; 



