WATER BIRDS. 175 
worms and possibly other animal food and its structure is such that the 
mandibles may be separated near the tip without withdrawing the bill. 
The holes thus left in the soft ground, and known to the sportsman as 
“borings,” are infallible indications of the neighborhood of the bird, but 
since it feeds mainly by night and hides closely by day, a good dog is 
absolutely necessary for successful shooting. 
There is no reason to suppose that the Woodcock gets all its food by 
probing or “boring”; in fact there is abundant evidence to the contrary. 
The structure of the bill allows the bird to pick up food from the surface 
with ease and precision, and the examination of stomachs proves that 
the diet is quite varied. Although earthworms are consumed in large 
Fig. 48. Woodcock on Nest. 
Photograph from life. (Courtesy of Gerard Alan Abbott.) 
numbers, various other worms are also eaten, and soft-bodied insect larve, 
especially those of subterranean habits, are constantly devoured. Dr. 
B. H. Warren, of West Chester., Pa. records beetles, larve, and a single 
spider, as taken from stomachs, and one killed in November, had eaten 
nothing but small seeds (Birds of Pa., 1888, p. 80). Professor Aughey 
found locusts in several Woodcock taken in Nebraska, and although other 
insects usually formed the larger part of the food, one taken in Otoe county 
in September 1876, had 32 locusts in its stomach, ‘besides a large number 
of other insects” (Ist Rep. U. 8. Entom. Com. App. 2, p. 51). 
It has an interesting habit of ‘‘towering,”’ that is, of rising to a con- 
siderable height by spiral flight, at either morning or evening twilight, 
uttering a peculiar series of notes meanwhile, and then pitching back to 
