264 SHORE BIRDS 



is usually found in the forests adjacent to the streams, 

 muddy from flowing through rich alluvial bottoms. 

 The timber is walnut, beech, and other nut-bearing 

 trees ; oaks, maples, and the picturesque sycamores 

 with wide-spreading white branches, and many wil- 

 lows. The undergrowth is heavy. Tall horse-weeds 

 grow in many places higher than one's head, and 

 many vines and creepers, from the slender morning- 

 glory to the larger grape, are tangled in a way to make 

 the walking difficult. In the hills and mountains of 

 Pennsylvania, New York, and New England the cocks 

 are found beside brighter, purer waters in the alder 

 swamps and places where the beautiful rhododendron 

 flourishes. Many springs and brooks in the haunts of 

 the ruffed-grouse water areas of boring ground often of 

 very limited dimension. 



In the South the cocks are found in the wet woods, 

 but as I have already observed, there is a harbor of 

 refuge in the cane. Charming is the ramble over any 

 of these grounds, magnificent the game. Great is the 

 joy of the sportsman who in the autumn stops a plump, 

 gray cock as he goes whistling through the brake. 



During very dry seasons large tracts of woodcock 

 ground become uninhabitable, there being no longer 

 any places soft enough for boring ; at such times 

 the birds cannot feed and must move^ Should there be 

 a small lake or pond in the vicinity with woods ad- 

 jacent, and springs not affected by the dry weather, the 

 woodcock will there congregate in vast numbers. I 

 once set out from Lake Forest, a village north of 

 Chicago, with a sportsman who resided there, our des- 

 tination being a duck club at Fox Lake. We went in 



