WOODCOCK 27 



cock. At the same season snipe abounded in enormous 

 numbers, and for the same reason. 



Another casual, but purely local, agent of destruc- 

 tion to the woodcock is the forest fires, which burn so 

 frequently in many of the Eastern States and which 

 run through groves or swamps where the woodcock 

 have their nests. In such States as New York, New 

 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts, 

 small brush or forest fires started by careless railroad 

 engineers or thoughtless boys, occur in autumn and 

 spring, and these may travel over considerable stretches 

 of country, destroying great numbers of young seedling 

 trees, burning through the leaves, dry underbrush and 

 dead branches of swamps, and destroying the nests 

 of quail, woodcock and ruffed grouse, and sometimes 

 even injuring the birds themselves. These fires, while 

 doing harm here and there, are not of regular occur- 

 rence and work but little injury compared with those 

 prairie fires which in old times used to sweep over the 

 fertile States of the West, destroying the nests of the 

 prairie chickens, leaving the country bare of food for 

 them and often causing the farmer the loss of some of 

 his haystacks, or even of some of his buildings. Yet 

 the harm done by these eastern fires is a serious matter 

 in a region where game birds are few. An area so 

 burnt over is not likely to be occupied by woodcock 

 for several years. The birds will not breed there, nor, 

 in most cases, will they resort to such a burnt area for 

 food or rest. 



The years 1908 and 1909 seem to have shown dur- 



