WOODCOCK 17 



and the number of these which a single bird will 

 devour in a given time is astonishing. Audubon says 

 that a woodcock will devour in a single night more 

 than its own weight in worms, and some experiments 

 on this point, made on a captive bird, entirely confirm 

 the observations of the great naturalist. This speci- 

 men was apparently a male, and weighed, at the time 

 of its capture, five ounces. His cage was two feet 

 long and one deep, and had been fitted up for him 

 by covering the bottom with long, dry moss, except 

 in one end, where there was a box of wet earth, eight 

 inches square and three deep. The bird was fed alto- 

 gether on earth-worms, and these were buried, a few 

 at a time, in the mud. From the first this woodcock 

 manifested very little fear of man; and it was but a 

 short time before he so well understood what the open- 

 ing of his cage door meant, that at the approach of 

 his owner he would run to his "feeding-ground" in 

 anticipation of the meal. So eager was he that it 

 was necessary to push him away to the other end of 

 the cage while the worms were being buried. As 

 soon as he was permitted he would run to the mud 

 and "bore" for the worms. This was a very inter- 

 esting proceeding. He would push the point of his 

 bill into the earth at an angle of about sixty degrees, 

 and by two or three deliberate thrusts bury it to the 

 base. While doing this the left foot was slightly ad- 

 vanced and the body somewhat inclined forward. 

 When the bill was wholly buried, he stood for a few 

 seconds perfectly still, as if listening. Perhaps he 



