OF NEW ENGLAND. 403 
ground. Their borings are certain signs, which are eagerly 
looked for by the sportsman. They also glean among decay- 
ing leaves and logs, and in low, moist, vegetable growth; but 
from a peculiarity of structure or habit, their soft animal food 
is so compressed and macerated in the swallowing that the 
species eaten becomes indistinguishable, even when the bird is , 
shot just after eating. Rich, soft earth, running water, and 
abundant shelter, are the most usual and certain conditions 
for a summer cover. 
The young birds mature very rapidly, but are usually only 
two-thirds grown in July. From the fact that often neither 
parents, or at most only one of them, are to be found with the 
young in their summer cover, and that birds only half grown 
are frequently shot in September or late in October, it may be 
inferred that two broods are raised in a season. It is certain 
that a second set of eggs is laid, when those of the first nest 
are destroyed, either by accident or by the common vicissitudes 
of our climate, such as early snows, or long continued wet and 
cold. There are great differences in the productiveness of 
different seasons. The writer recalls one within a few years 
when there was a heavy snow-storm in the middle of April, 
and afterwards floods caused by northeasterly rains; the same 
extensive grounds, over which he had been accustomed to get 
three or four dozen birds in the course of July, contained that 
year just seven old birds, while a large portion of the few 
Woodcock found in September were mere fledglings. Others 
made similar observations during the same year. 
By the first of August a majority of the Woodcock desert 
the low, wet grounds, and scatter themselves all over the 
country, generally choosing, however, some dry spot, protected 
by a dense second growth. The sportsman may chance to find 
them, however, in the long grass of a meadow, and in a variety 
of such places as corn-fields, pine-groves, bunches of dry alders, 
knolls of cedar, hillsides of birch, woods of chestnuts, thickets 
of briars, etc. They are now moulting and half-naked, and 
they can no longer make that peculiar whistle which at all 
other times warns the sportsman. Though they sometimes 
