14 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



sketched and from which she was afterward fright- 

 ened. The number is very unusual, if not previously 

 unexampled. 



As soon as the young emerge from the egg, they 

 leave the nest and follow the mother. Thencefor- 

 ward their development is rapid, and young birds have 

 been found well able to fly by April 10. Two broods 

 are usually reared in the Middle States. A curious 

 habit of the woodcock, which, though well attested, is 

 as yet but little understood, is its practice of carry- 

 ing its young from place to place, apparently to avoid 

 danger. Exactly how the mother bird does this is 

 not certainly known, but the weight of evidence seems 

 to show that she holds it clasped between her thighs, 

 as a rider does his horse, and does not carry it in 

 her weak and slender claws. She will sometimes 

 thus transport her young for a hundred yards or more, 

 and if pursued will even make a second flight with it. 



By the last of July, in favorable seasons, the young 

 of the second hatching are quite fit to look out for 

 themselves, and early in August the woodcock disap- 

 pear that is to say, can no longer be found by those 

 who search for them. They retire to the dry hillsides 

 among the heavy undergrowth, and remain there until 

 the moult is complete. From such places often among 

 thick growths of hazel or witch-hazel they may some- 

 times be flushed by the ornithologist who is searching 

 for early migrants. In September they collect once 

 more in their accustomed haunts, and then are fat, in 

 good plumage, and fit for the gun. 



