CHAPTER XVII. 
WOODCOCK AND S8NIPE. 
TuEsr woodcocks are undoubtedly migratory, passing 
the winter in the genial South, and the summer in the 
North; they are also nocturnal, doing all their traveling by 
night. From the peculiar formation of the eye, their sight 
is much better after the sun has declined. Strong light is 
their detestation, for, judging from their conduct when 
flushed in the noonday glare, their optics are then of little 
use; hence the idea that is so frequently. current that this 
bird is stupid. Such is not the case, but quite the reverse, 
experience having taught me that they are as capable as 
any other of availing themselves of artifices and hiding- 
places that are likely to throw out the dog, or shelter them 
from molestation. This bird, although undoubtedly of the 
same family, must not be confounded with the European, 
which is colored differently in plumage and much larger in 
size. The woodcock killed in England generally measure 
about fourteen and a half inches in length, and weigh from 
fourteen to seventeen ounces, although one is reported to 
have been killed at Narborough of the enormous weight of 
twenty-seven ounces. I do not here give all the minutiz of 
the English bird, for it is not of it that I wish to speak, 
but only sufficiently to show that there is a marked differ- 
ence between it and its namesake of the American conti- 
nent, whose peculiarities I will, so far as memory serves me, 
attempt to describe, for the benefit of the young sports- 
man. Length, from point of bill to end of tail, eleven to 
twelve inches; across the wings, nine and a half inches; 
