

THE BROODING WOODCOCK AS I SAW HER. 



Some thirty years ago, during my 

 schoolboy days, my father was clearing 

 a strip of brushy woods on the south- 

 east corner of his farm in Mercer 

 County, Ohio. 



When our winter school had closed, 

 late in March, father took my brother 

 and me to help in the clearing. It was 

 joined on the north end by a low wet 

 woodland. Through this ran a stream, 

 then a favorite place for wild ducks and 

 other birds which frequent water 

 courses. The south part of the clearing- 

 was a rich knoll, where we began the 

 clearing and continued working toward 

 the north end. A wood-road ran from 

 the wet woods on the north the entire 

 length of the strip, and there was a little 

 rise of ground from this road about half 

 way between the ends of the strip. 



One morning in April, as we were 

 going along this wood-road to our work, 

 we flushed a female Woodcock from her 

 nest on the rise of ground. This was a 

 great pleasure to me, for it gave me a 

 chance to study -this interesting bird at 

 close quarters, and it was the only time I 

 ever found its nest, saw its eggs or its 

 young. 



The nest was placed at the foot of a 

 small wild plum-bush, which grew on a 

 small hillock. It was only a slight hol- 

 low scratched out by the bird and was 

 lined with leaves. There were four eggs 

 in the nest, large at one end, small at the 

 other. The ground color was a dirty 

 white greatly mottled with brown and 

 much darker at the larger end. They 

 much resembled the eggs of the killdeer, 

 only they were larger. They were ar- 

 ranged with the points to the center of 

 the nest. The female was sitting when 

 we found her, and, although the nest was 

 not more than six feet from the wagon- 

 road, she seldom flew off her nest as we 

 passed. She soon became accustomed to 

 our passing and for about two weeks we ■ 

 enjoyed looking for her. She was almost 

 identical in color with the brown leaves, 

 but from the position of the nest near 



the small bush we knew exactly where to 

 look for her, or it would have been difll- 

 cult to see her at all. There was one 

 peculiarity about her position on the nest, 

 she invariably faced the south, which 

 was opposite her feeding ground. She 

 presented a beautiful picture to a lover 

 of nature, her rich brown plumage being 

 delicately penciled ; her small head well 

 drawn back and settled in her feathers, 

 and with her long bill almost hidden in 

 her full round breast. The most notice- 

 able thing was her bright eyes, which 

 were ever alert and took in everything 

 around her with no effort on her part. 

 There w r as nothing to obstruct the view 

 from the wagon-track and I have often 

 thought what* an opportunity that was 

 for a perfect picture, had it been in the 

 days of the camera, yet the picture is still 

 vivid in my mind. 



One morning we passed and as 

 usual looked for the bird. She was not 

 there. The nest was empty, but on look- 

 ing round, a few feet from the nest, the 

 mother bird suddenly began to crawl 

 away, flapping her wings in that decep- 

 tive way and doing everything in her 

 pow r er to attract us from her family. We 

 ^ad been waiting too long to see the lit- 

 tle folks to be thus diverted, and on 

 closely scrutinizing the spot from which 

 she started we found, lying on the leaves, 

 the four little chicks, which must have 

 hatched during the previous night and 

 were already beginning their short trip 

 to their feeding grounds in the nearby 

 swampy brushwood. They were inter- 

 esting little fluffy brown things, with two 

 bars of a lighter shade running down 

 their backs, very much like the young of 

 the small brown bantam chickens. Their 

 little eyes shone like black beads, and 

 their long bills were out of all propor- 

 tion to the size of the little chicks, which 

 seemed puzzled to know 7 what they 

 should do with them. But we presume 

 they soon learned, for we only had this 

 one study of them and never saw them 

 again. 



Tohx F. Strete. 



