the last pair breeding in this last shrinking 

 covert. 



They had been eager— but one of the pair, by 

 some miracle, had escaped. There he went 

 humming through the dusk, and all my world 

 was changed. 



He would induce some young, unmated female 

 on her way north to remain vnth. him, and there 

 would yet be a home in the swale. At first I 

 feared lest this one should prove to be a female 

 that would be lured away ; if not, then that he 

 might be a migrant himself, who would halt 

 only to feed that night. But the next day I 

 found him along the stream, and I knew by 

 the way he got to cover that he was on familiar 

 ground and had come to stay. 



What a queer, comical-looking bird he is ! If 

 nature ever had any feeble-minded offspring, 

 you would surely put Woodcock down for one. 

 But he has a full share of bird sense. The 

 matter with him is partly his nocturnal habits. 

 Night does not seem the birds' natural wake- 

 time, and those that turn it into day invariably 

 take on some odd, almost abnormal appearance 

 — the owl assumes his ridiculous show of wis- 

 [217] 



