OF NEW ENGLAND. 405 
of the same day we found six or eight birds in a bit of wood 
where we had never seen Woodcock before, and no doubt the 
morning’s bird was among them. 
It is quite evident that Woodcock do not fly in flocks, like 
plover or wild fowl, compactly and under the direction of a 
leader; but that each travels independently, coming in contact 
with his companions through their common tastes. Yet it is 
said to be wise to leave a bird or two in every cover as “ tollers.” 
Twice when the writer has met a flight, both occasions being 
late in the afternoon, he has gone through the cover once, 
thought it shot out, returned over the same ground as it was 
growing dark, found half as many more, and still, as he has 
stood after dark on the edge of the cover and has walked 
away, he has perceived the birds dropping in one by one. The 
next day scarcely a bird could be found there. 
The Woodcock pretty generally disappear (near Boston) by 
the twenty-fifth of October, though it is not uncommon to have 
good shooting a fortnight later. It seems that the old birds 
sometimes precede the young in their flights, as is the case 
with the Sea Coot and Golden Plover. The writer once 
weighed eighteen, shot on the second of October, whose aver- 
age weight was seven ounces. This may have been owing to 
some extraordinary combination of accidents; but every 
sportsman is familiar with those very small, wiry, compactly 
feathered, weather-tanned birds, who appear in October, and 
who are called, perhaps locally, ‘‘ Labrador twisters.” 
The influence of weather upon the birds is an interesting but 
puzzling study. A heavy rain or frost causes them to shift 
their quarters from swamps to hillsides or vice versa ; a drought. 
or heavy flood drives them away altogether. In autumn, just 
before a northeast storm, birds that have been on a ground the 
whole season sometimes seem very nervous and restless, jump- 
ing up wildly and flying far ; in the same cover, after the storm, 
no birds can be found. ‘ 
The flight of the Woodcock, when first flushed, is short and 
very slow. In summer, the same bird may often be shot at 
eight or ten times, by persistent and thorough searching. He 
