WOODCOCK, 17 
and the number of these which a single bird will 
devour in a given time is astonishing. Audubon says 
that a woodcock will devour in a single night more 
than its own weight in worms, and some experiments 
on this point, made on a captive bird, entirely confirm 
the observations of the great naturalist. This speci- 
men was apparently a male, and weighed, at the time 
of its capture, five ounces. His cage was two feet 
long and one deep, and had been fitted up for him 
by covering the bottom with long, dry moss, except 
in one end, where there was a box of wet earth, eight 
inches square and three deep. The bird was fed alto- 
gether on earth-worms, and these were buried, a few 
at a time, in the mud. From the first this woodcock 
manifested very little fear of man; and it was but a 
short time before he so well understood what the open- 
ing of his cage door meant, that at the approach of 
his owner he would run to his “feeding-ground” in 
anticipation of the meal. So eager was he that it 
was necessary to push him away to the other end of 
the cage while the worms were being buried. As 
soon as he was permitted he would run to the mud 
and “bore” for the worms. This was a very inter- 
esting proceeding. He would push the point of his 
bill into the earth at an angle of about sixty degrees, 
and by two or three deliberate thrusts bury it to the 
base. While doing this the left foot was slightly ad- 
vanced and the body somewhat inclined forward. 
When the bill was wholly buried, he stood for a few 
seconds perfectly still, as if listening. Perhaps he 
