STRAIGHT SEEING AND THINKING 



I was reminded of this lately on hearing the twi- 

 light flight song of the woodcock — one of the most 

 curious and tantalizing yet interesting bird songs 

 we have. I fancy that the persons who hear and 

 recognize it in the April or May twilight are few and 

 far between. I myself have heard it only on three 

 occasions — one season in late March, one season 

 in April, and the last time in the middle of May. It 

 is a voice of ecstatic song coming down from the 

 upper air and through the mist and the darkness — 

 the spirit of the swamp and the marsh climbing 

 heavenward and pouring out its joy in a wild burst 

 of lyric melody ; a haunter of the muck and a prober 

 of the mud suddenly transformed into a bird that 

 soars and circles and warbles like a lark hidden or 

 half hidden in the depths of the twilight sky. The 

 passion of the spring has few more pleasing exem- 

 plars. The madness of the season, the abandon of 

 the mating instinct, is in every move and note. 

 Ordinarily the woodcock is a very dull, stupid bird, 

 with a look almost idiotic, and is seldom seen except 

 by the sportsman or the tramper along marshy 

 brooks. But for a brief season in his life he is an 

 inspired creature, a winged song that baffles the eye 

 and thrills the ear from the mystic regions of the 

 upper air. 



When I last heard it, I was with a companion, 

 and our attention was arrested, as we were skirting 

 the edge of a sloping, rather marshy, bowlder-strewn 

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