and field and swale shot a new, wild thrill of 

 life. It was the return of a woodcock that had 

 nested for several seasons along a slender, alder- 

 hidden stream about half a mile from my home. 



I was not expecting him back this spring. 

 When the gunning season opened the previous 

 July, at least a score of men knew that a single 

 pair of woodcocks had nested in the swale ; and 

 up and down, over and over, one after another 

 they beat it, beat it by clump, by tussock, by 

 square foot for the birds, killing five. Four of 

 these were the young of that summer ; the fifth 

 was one of the parents. 



The swale turned brown, and soon lay silent 

 and bleak. I could not pass it during the win- 

 ter without a feeling akin to anger. It was a 

 narrow strip, barely fifty feet across at its 

 widest, flanked by a wooded hillside and by 

 wide, tilled fields. But it was all the swamp, 

 all the meadow I had ; and that this should be 

 robbed of its life, that all my out-of-doors within 

 vision range should never again hold a wood- 

 cock's nest, was more than a grief. 



I had been robbed. Twenty men against six 

 woodcocks ! And they had been eager to kill 

 [216] 



