286 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



favourable passage. As soon as this is presented all start off, eager to get to 

 their journey's end, and consequently arrive simultaneously on our coasts, but as 

 soon as they reach land they separate and each bird, or at most a pair, retire to 

 their own particular haunts. Even in districts where the Woodcock is common 

 during winter no gregarious tendencies are ever observed, and the birds are flushed 

 with rare exceptions one after the other from certain favoured spots. Its habits 

 are quite as solitary as those of the Snipes, and like those birds it is ever changing 

 its ground, sometimes for no apparent cause. Woodcock-shooting is a sport that 

 should never be put off till to-morrow ; if plenty of birds chance to be in the 

 covers they should be looked after at once, for very often if a night is allowed 

 them they have taken their departure. The favourite haunts of the Woodcock 

 are plantations of young trees and spinneys with plenty of long grass and under- 

 growth, and the borders of woods where similar cover abounds, especially hollies, 

 under which the bird loves to skulk during the day. Its feeding grounds are 

 marshes, swamps, and the boggy banks of streams, even turnip fields, and these 

 are often some considerable distance from the haunts it frequents during the day- 

 time. The Woodcock feeds principally at night, and it retires to its favourite 

 pastures with great regularity about dusk, following a certain track to and from 

 them ; when its feeding places are close by it always prefers to walk down to 

 them. Even whilst feeding it is ever a shy and cautious bird, and I have heard 

 dozens of men whose daily lives have been spent in the woods and other haunts 

 of this species remark, when questioned on the subject, that they had never seen 

 a Woodcock feeding or running about in a purely voluntary manner. The 

 occasions on which I have seen Woodcocks stirring of their own free will could 

 easily be counted on the fingers of one hand. I have seen odd birds during a 

 bright moonlighb night whilst sitting near the swamps, certainly not watch- 

 ing for them, wandering about probing the mud with their long beaks, and 

 looking very big and round and plump in the uncertain light, and disappearing 

 like phantoms, as it were, into the very ground the moment they were alarmed. 

 I remember one of these occasions was in the depth of winter and all the country- 

 side was deep in snow, except the little swamp in question. The food of the 

 Woodcock consists principally of earth-worms and grubs, but beetles and other 

 insects are eaten, and vegetable fragments have been found in the bird's stomach. 

 It has also been known to eat shellfish. Its flight is quick, but somewhat 

 laboured, the bird carrying its long bill depressed. Sometimes when flushed the 

 Woodcock hurries off at first in a very eractic manner, dipping and gliding or 

 turning and twisting from side to side, and it is surprising how deftly the bird 

 will thread its way between the tree-trunks and network of branches. It makes 

 a very distinct whirr with its wings as it rises and at the same time occasionally 

 utters a croaking sound, which I will not attempt to syllable, although some 

 naturalists have done so with that of skaych. The Woodcock has been known 

 to perch in trees, 



