THE WOODCOCK. 447 



the sportsman; while the manner in which his haunts have 

 been studied and scoured with dog and gun, merely to 

 gratify the palate, or the love of shooting, is too well known 

 to need either note or comment, except by way of earnest 

 deprecation. 



The shape of the Woodcock is unlike that of any other 

 bird. Some eleven or twelve inches long — the male being 

 quite a good deal less — with a bill nearly three inches long, 

 and deep and strong at the base, his legs and tail uncommonly 

 short, his whole body, including head and neck, thick and 

 bulky, and his large black eyes so near the back of his 

 head, complete the oddness of his personal appearance. On 

 the whole, he makes one think of a short, thick man in a 

 swallow-tail coat; and his eyes are so placed that he can see 

 above and behind about as well as before. Did the Creator 

 locate his eyes in anticipation of the merciless manner in 

 which he is hunted down? The Woodcock is far from being 

 unpleasing, however, in his general appearance. The light 

 chestnut feathers of the under parts, delicately fringed with 

 lighter; the white patch on the throat, shading into the adjoin- 

 ing tints; the bright drab on the head, the sides of the neck, 

 and mixed in with the fine pencilings of wings and tail; the 

 velvety black from the eye to the mouth, and below the 

 formei^ on the back of the head, and adown the back, 

 scapulars, and tail, all so finely tipped and penciled with 

 drab and light red as to appear fairly illuminated — all these 

 render the bird an object of no common beauty. 



Differing from the European Woodcock in size — being Yi 

 less, also in marking and in structure, particularly in the 

 narrowness of the first three primaries, our Woodcock is a 

 common bird of the Eastern United States, and extends 

 quite commonly, as a summer resident, into New Brunswick 

 and Nova Scotia. Audubon did not find it in Newfoundland 



