THE WOODCOCK. 313 
casionally drops five. These are white, blotched with 
chocolate, and very symmetrical in shape. If she sits on 
these the young are hatched early in May, but should 
they be destroyed, she lays another set; hence it is not 
unusual to meet chicks in August which are hardly able 
to fly; yet they are killed by some persons. 
The mother takes the chicks to the feeding grounds as 
soon as they are able to travel, and works diligently in 
procuring them food, but should food become scarce or 
the ground so hard that the young cannot bore through 
it, she takes them, one at a time, between her thighs, 
and transports them to a region where it is more abund- 
ant. When she is removing them, her flight is slow, 
quivering, and labored, and she does not rise higher 
above the ground than necessity compels her. After 
reaching her new quarters, she seems to be very happy, 
and nothing gives her so much pleasure as to see the 
young feeding generously on juicy worms. Few moth- 
ers are more devoted to their duties than the female 
woodcock, for she will sometimes allow herself to be cap- 
tured rather than desert her nest, and if any foe threat- 
ens to assail her chicks, she pretends to be wounded and 
flutters helplessly ahead of it until she has led it away 
from them, when she rises suddenly and hastens to some 
dense covert until she can rejoin her brood. A family of 
woodcocks generally consists of six—the two adults and 
four chicks. These remain together until the autumn, 
then separate, and though they may stay in the same 
coppice or swale, yet they seldom associate, but wander 
about singly until they commence migrating to their win- 
ter homes. Being largely nocturnal in habit, they seek for 
their food chiefly at night, and return to the dense brakes 
in which they live ere the day dawns. As they cat an enor- 
mous quantity of worms—at least their own weight every 
twenty-four hours—they get fat in a short time where 
food isabundant. Their favorite haunts are rich swampy 
14 
