Mat 1, 1884.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



266 



ago. The body of the larger Track was m fair condition, 

 while that of the Smaller was much emaciated, showing that 

 the larger and more powerful had succeeded in forcing his 

 adversary's head to one side so that he could browse a little. 



Audubon and Bachman state that they once saw three 

 pairs of horns thus interlocked. What a wretched trio this 

 must have been, slowly starving in the midst of plenty! 



At this season the bucks not only light among themselves, 

 but occasionally attack man, and more than one unfortunate 

 person has been gored to death by them. In battle they 

 make use of their horns and also of their forefeet, whose 

 sharp hoofs are capable of inflict ing terrible w ounds. I was 

 once sitting quietly on a log in a deer park when a Imck ap- 

 proached, and, making a sudden spring, dealt me such a 

 powerful blow on the head, with the hoofs of his forefeet, as 

 to vender me unconscious. No sooner was I thrown upon 

 the ground than the vicious beast sprang upon me, and 

 would doubtless have killed me outright had it not been for 

 the intervention of a man who rushed at him with a club and 

 finally drove -Jmn off. Both my father and myself have 

 been knocked flat upon the ground by being struck in the 

 abdomen by the forefeet of a very harmless-looking doe. 



As a rule, two fawns are born at a time, one being the ex- 

 ception. Most of them are brought forth in May, a few 

 being dropped as early as the latter part of April, while 

 others are postponed until the first week in June. They are at 

 first .spotted, the spots usually remaining about four months 

 and disappearing in September, when both old and young 

 change their coats. Before the moult takes place they may 

 be fairly regarded as one of the most beautiful of North 

 American mammals, and their graceful and sprightly move- 

 ments cannot fail to elicit admiration. 



The clear white spots are set in a ground of rich bay, and 

 the contrast is heightened, to use the language of Judge 

 Cat on, by the animal's "exceedingly bright eye, erect atti- 

 tude, elastic movement, and vivacious appearance. * * * 

 The highest perfection of graceful motion is seen in the fawn 

 of but a month or two old, after it has commenced following 

 its mother through the grounds. It is naturally very timid, 

 and is alarmed at the sight of man, and when it sees its 

 dam go boldly up to him and take food from his hand it 

 manifests both apprehension and surprise, and sometimes 

 something akin to displeasure. I have seen one 

 standing' a few rods away, face me boldly and stamp 

 his little foot, in a fierce and threatening way, as if he would 

 say. -If you hurt my mother I will avenge the insult on the 

 spot.!. Ordinarily it will stand with its head elevated to the 

 utmost ; its ears erect and projecting somewhat forward; its 

 eyes Mashing, and raise one forefoot and suspend it for a few 

 moments, and then trot off and around at a safe distance 

 with a measured pace, which is uot flight, and with a grace 

 and elasticity which must be" seen to be appreciated, for it 

 quite defies verbal description. A foot is raised from the 

 ground so quickly that you hardly see it, it seems poised in 

 the air for an instant and is then so quietly and even tenderly 

 dropped and again so instantly raised, that you are in doubt 

 whether it even touched the ground, and if it did, you are 

 sure it would not crush the violet on which it fell."§ 



Paw us are readily tamed, in fact become tame of them- 

 selves, if much handled, in an astonishingly short time; and 

 1 have known one to follow its keeper, and even bleat for 

 him, when out of sight, within three or four days after its 

 capture. At this tender age they display neither judgment 

 nor common sense in the selection of food, devouring almost 

 anything that fails in then- way which they are able to swallow. 

 Bits of newspapers, old rags, and pieces of boots and shoes 

 are seized and disposed of with as much apparent eagerness 

 as bread and butter or lily-pads ; and I once saw a fawn eat 

 a box of chewing tobacco given it by an unprincipled visitor, 

 Jt died next day. 



The flesh of the deer is juicy, tender, and well flavored, 

 and is the most easily digested of meats. Its good qualities 

 are too well knowm to require further comment. 



The hide is put to a variety of uses, the most important, 

 with us, being the manufacture of gloves and moccasins. 



Our deer are much larger than those of the South and 

 Southwest, adult well-conditioned bucks averaging from 200 

 to 385 pounds avoirdupois in weight, and exceptionally large 

 ones being much heavier. Hence the Adirondack deer is 

 more than double the size and weight of the same species in 

 Florida. 



1 have taken great pains to ascertain, approximately, the 

 number of deer annually slain in this Wilderness, but with 

 indifferent success. It is a low estimate to state that from 

 five to eight hundred have been killed here yearly for the 

 past ten years. How much longer their numbers can with- 

 stand this enormous drain, is an open question. 



On the 3d of July, 1609, Samuel de Champlain ascended 

 the river Richelieu, and entered the lake that now bears his 

 name. In his narrative of this memorable journey, he 

 speaks thus of the animals found upon the island at the foot 

 of the lake: 'Here are a number of beautiful, but low 

 islands, filled with very fine woods and prairies, a quantity 

 of game and wild animals, such, as stags, deer, fawns, roe- 

 bucks, bears, and other sorts of animals that come from the 

 mainland to the said islands. We caught a quantity of 

 them. There is also quite a number of heavers, as well in 

 the river as in several other streams which fall into it. These 

 parts, though agreeable, are not inhabited by any Indians, 

 in consequence of their wars." 



Pennant says, that 25,027 hides were exported from New 

 York and Pennsylvania in the sale of 1764. (Arctic Zoology, 

 Vol. I, 1792, p. 83). 

 [to be continued.] 



§ Antelope and Deer of America, p. 155. 

 ■^Documentary History of New York, Vol. III., p. 5. 



Bird Arrivals at Cleveland, Omo.-Wc are having 

 quite a cool spring, but the birds are coming at about their 

 usual time, Following is a list of the arrivals thus far this 

 spring: Bluebirds, Feb. 19; robins, Feb. 24; crows, March 

 1; ptirple graekle, March 20; meadow lark, March 20; red- 

 winged blackbird, March 22; yellow-shafted flicker, March 

 24; cowbirds. March 26; Wilson's snipe, March 29; wood- 

 cock, March 29; green heron, March 29; chipping sparrow, 

 April 1; mourning dove, April 7; grassfinch, April 11; wood 

 pewee, April 12; brown creeper, April 13; barn swallow, 

 April 19; kingfisher, April 21; yellow-bellied woodpecker, 

 April 23. — Siti. 



Branching Out.— Readers of this journal who are going 

 abroad will be glad to know that we have just completed 

 arrangements to have the paper placed for sale on all rail- 

 road newstands of Great Britain. Readers who stay home 

 are informed that a growing subscription list and * steady 

 advertising patronage (both on a cash basis) will enable us 

 to continue to furnish the paper at $4 per year. 



?*ty* $*8 w\d 



THE WOODCOCK, 



[A paper read before the New Hampshire Fish and Game League 

 by Dr. Wm. Jarvis.l 



IN the list of birds pursued with dog and gun there is one 

 that has a lasting claim upon the affections of the sports- 

 men, both on account of its beauty and the mystery that 

 Surrounds its ways. Abird of nightly wanderings, and daily 

 rest; a bird with eyes so dark and deep that the glories of an 

 autumnal sky and landscape are reflected in miniature from 

 their depths; a bird with the magic power to turn a sports- 

 man from all other feathered game if he once hears the 

 whistle of its wings or sees its form glide stealthily down the 

 glade. Its plumage above is mottled with rufous, slate and 

 black, while below upon its shapely breast, there is a tinge 

 of pink that fades toward the tail to a paler hue. Its legs 

 are of moderate length and almost flesh-colored, while the 

 feet have a brownish cast. Its bill is dark iu color and very 

 long, and its eyes are set near the top of its head, that it may 

 the more safely push its earthy investigations without injury 

 to its eyesight. Its weight is from five to eight ounces, 

 the latter found more generally among the females. Such 

 is the woodcock, a bird once known never to be forgotten. 

 It has, too, a claim upon the epicure, as well as sportsmen, 

 and from those days when the Pontine marshes furnished 

 woodcock iu such numbers that the Romans feasted off their 

 tongues, until the present time, this bird has been regarded 

 as one of the daintiest morsels ever tasted by mortal man. 



Of woodcock we have but one variety inhabiting Eastern 

 North America, and breeding in various sections throughout 

 the United States, called by ornithologists Phihhda minor, 

 to distinguish it in a learned and scientific manner from its 

 cousin, the woodcock of Europe, a bird differing from ours 

 in shape of wings, in being perhaps a third larger, and in 

 general markings. However, it is not iu my province to 

 offer an elaborate or extended article upon this bud, but 

 merely to bring forth a few notes concerning the tribe as 1 

 have found it in New England while wandering through our 

 glens in the early season and in autumn months, "beating" 

 the hillsides with dog and gun. And yet the woodcock is 

 about the same sort of a bird wherever youfind it, and wood- 

 cock shooting is much the same sport throughout the length 

 and breadth of our land. Interspersed here and there can be 

 found many a stream trickling from among the hills and 

 winding through the lowlands of New Eugland, upon whose 

 banks of deep, rich loam, woodcock love to feed, and amid 

 whose alder-covered environs they nest and rear their broods. 



Their arrival in the northern latitude varies with the sea- 

 son; but it is not long after the bluebirds and robins have re- 

 turned, and the loam along the brooksides has been softened 

 by the sunny days. Soon after mating, for the male bird, 

 unlike the ruffed grouse, is satisfied with a single love, they 

 build upon the ground their nest of leaves and twigs, not 

 very wonderful however as specimens of bird architecture. 

 And then the female lays her eggs, four or five iu number, 

 quite round in form, of a dull, clay color, covered with 

 brownish spots, and in size corresponding to the pigeon's. 

 The male bird assists in incubation, and if all goes well, soon 

 the little family of longbills are waddling about on their 

 slender legs, the funniest little crowd one ever sees in all the 

 woodland. They tumble about in their efforts at locomotion 

 like a troop of tyro acrobats, and their bills seem to be always 

 in the way. However, they grow apace, and in about four 

 weeks are able to fly, though they are by no means easy in 

 their flight. 



The parent birds are very solicitous of their little ones, and 

 when mankind encroaches upon their domain, endeavor, by 

 all the arts known to biidland. to attract attention to them- 

 selves in order to give these downy chicks a chance to hide 

 beneath leaf and twig. They sometimes even convey their 

 young bodily through the air to a place of safety. There is 

 no other bird family of all our fields and forests so peculiar 

 in their ways, none of whose ways are so hard to study, 

 consequently none so little understood; and the reason is 

 very plain. The woodcock does not fly about during the 

 day for either food or pleasure, scarcely ever taking wing 

 unless disturbed, but keeps all the day long from vulgar 

 eyes, and when the sun has set and most good birds retire to 

 rest starts out for its feeding grounds. And often in the 

 gloaming of summer evenings have 1 seen them dart across 

 my path like spirits, noiseless and swift, iu their journeys to 

 favorite dells. They seem to know by intuition what loam 

 contains the fattest, sweetest worms, what bog contains the 

 choicest loam, and by their borings leave for us, otherwise 

 unsophisticated in woodcock logic, indications of their feed- 

 ing grounds. However, I must confess that they are not 

 wholly birds of the night, neither are their deeds evil, that 

 they do feed while the sun is shining, though not where it 

 shines. I know of this, for 1 have caught them at their 

 borings where a dark morass was clothed with pools mar- 

 gined with deep, rich loam, and the alders were so thick 

 that the sunlight could not reach the earth beneath, where, 

 low upon the earth, all was dark and still, save the hum of 

 insect life and the purling of the brook; and once, one hot 

 August day, while creeping through a meadow cornfield in 

 my efforts at stalking an upland plover which was 

 standing alert,, just outside in a short patch of clover, 

 I found a woodcock busy at his mid-day feast, prob- 

 ing the rich, moist soil beneath the shadows of the 

 tall, thick corn. I watched him some time, until either sus- 

 picious of my presence or satiated with his feast, he walked 

 from my sight with bobbing head. It was his last feast, as 

 I soon flushed and shot him. I have often wondered if they 

 act the same by night as day, and what could be their ways 

 as they feed on stormy nights beneath the cover of over- 

 hanging tree-lined banks, if they are as solemn then as when 

 feeding in the daytime. But I have no doubt they pass 

 many a night in revelry by the margin of some favorite 

 pool, whose mirrored surface reflects the starlit zenith, the 

 moon high above them for their chandelier, the wind 

 anthems through the treetops for their music. If they do 

 not often pass the night in high carnival why are they such 

 quiet birds by daylight? Why are they not found running 

 about like the lordly grouse or the uplaud plover? It is only- 

 one of the many mysteries that surround a tribe whose com- 

 plete history is not yet written. However, in my rambling 

 lines I must not forget the love notes of the male bird, for 

 to do that would be to do him rank injustice. It is a 

 sweeter song by far than that of many a famous songster, 

 and I have no doubt sounds as sweetly to his lady bird 

 down in the ferns beneath as did ever song of troubadour 

 to his lady love in "ye olden times." It is during the twi- 

 light that the woodcock utters bis love notes. He gives a 



prelude to Ins song upon the ground, then circles up in 

 flight through the treetops till lost to sight. You hear his 

 murmuring high in air, and in his downward flight you 

 catch the full melody of his love song as he approaches' the 

 place he started from, near which without doubt his female 

 is awaiting him. This song of the woodcock may be new 

 to many, but it is one one'e listened to you will' not soon 

 forget. 



Woodcock are a riddle to the sportsman who knows them 

 best, while to those without the pale of field sports they are 

 known only as the name is seen upon some bill of fare, or as 

 they are brought upon the table served with the highest culU 

 nary skill. To the rustic lad and farmer upon whose land 

 amfd the swamps and glades they breed, they are unseen, 

 unknown, or if seen, known only as mudhens or by some 

 other low-born title, and should' you inquire for woodcock 

 you would most likely be directed to the old trees in the 

 orchard or upon the hillside, but not often, I'll warrant, to 

 the alder-covered lowlands, for the farmer is not so familiar 

 with these bird tenants of his freehold as with the ruffed 

 grouse and several others of the feathered race. There was 

 formerly much mystery in regard to the disappearance of 

 woodcocks during August and early September, and various 

 have been the ideas advanced, but to go into all these theories 

 would take too long. That they do, to a certain extent, 

 vanish, or at all events are not to be found in any great 

 numbers in their breeding places is well known, yet there is 

 no black art in all this. A few remain in their old haunts, 

 some go to the cornfields, others to the hills; in short, they 

 simply scatter. It is the time of breaking off their family 

 ties, for it is their moulting period, and being not pleasant to 

 look upon, or plump of body, or smooth and glossy of 

 feather, they have a lady's pride, and so withdraw to some 

 private, sylvan boudoir, there to nurse their strength till 

 nature shall have worked her course, arfU they may once 

 more present themselves in all their gorgeous beauty, the 

 sportsman's pride and glory. Summer woodcock shooting 

 ought to be abolished for the welfare of the tribe, not that 

 they are any easier to bag then than later on, at least I have 

 never found them so, but that they are not in so good form 

 for either gun or table, and furthermore, it is disastrous to 

 the ruffed grouse, for, as the law stands in New Hampshire, 

 many a fledgling grouse helps to till the bag during August 

 days', when "shooting woodcock," by men who never shoot 

 them later and have no dogs suitable for the sport, is an ex- 

 cuse for being in the covers with dog and gun. The law for 

 both birds should be the same, then, my word upon it, there 

 would be better shooting among the hills. 



It is during the cool, moonlight nights of September, that 

 golden month of the harvest moon, that woodcocks leave 

 their hermit life and visit the southern hillsides, sunny 

 glades and tinted brakes, there to linger till the colder frosts 

 shall warn them to be on their journey ere the winter snnws 

 fly among the naked trees and cover the brow n ferns and 

 meadows. How the whistle of a flushed woodcock on an 

 autumn morning stirs one's blood! What a thrill it sends 

 dancing along one's nerves! No other in all the list can ex- 

 cel it; "not even the ruffed grouse of our woodland as he 

 cleaves the low grown treetops, nor the grouse of the West- 

 ern plains as he rushes from the stubble, nor the quail as he 

 whirs from the sedge and cornfield, nor yet the suipe as he 

 twists away upon the wind. I have shot them all in season, 

 so write from my own experience. The woodcock, too, is 

 unlike them in the manner of its flight. When flushed they 

 are up and away, you may be right sure of that, but the 

 woodcook, with all its vagaries, is almost as likely to come 

 into one's face as to go elsewhere, yet it is no dullard, but as 

 great a rascal as ever flushed before a gun. In fact, you can 

 place no dependence whatever upon its flight, and that very 

 uncertainty is, perhaps, one of the magic links which bind 

 us to its pursuit. It will often pitch headlong at the report 

 of the gun down into a bunch of brakes or tuft of grass, even 

 if caught on the open hiilside, thereby giving to the uniniti- 

 ated the idea that it is lulled or badly wounded. It often, 

 too, rises straight from before you as though impelled by 

 some hidden spring, then, taking in its flight a ride over the 

 alder tops, pitches just behind, not two rods from where you 

 fluslied it. Or, if you have no dog to catch the scent, it may 

 wait till you have passed it by, then, when your back is 

 turned, steal away like a thief, without eveu a note of warn- 

 ing. It is truly wonderful how the woodcock directs its 

 flight, for no matter how thick the trees and branches to mar 

 your aim, it skillfully avoids them in its flight, and leaves you- 

 wondering how in the name of flesh and blood it ever escaped 

 their network. 



Though September brings back woodcoek from their 

 moult, yet it is when October's scenes are full upon us, and 

 their beauty reigns not elsewhere as it does here in New 

 Hampshire, by the dashing streams, among the woodlands 

 and along the furrowed hillsides, that the finest woodcock 

 shooting is enjoyed throughout New England. And what, 

 pray you, can excel an October day, when the morning is 

 clear and fresh, and the frost of the night before, harbinger 

 of the woodcock's flight, whitens the fence-tops and fallen 

 trees, and hangs sparkling and dripping from the lichen- 

 covered tree trunks, from every leaf and twig, and the rank 

 herbage is a mass of fretted silver; or that when the mid- 

 day sun casts over land and water that misty veil so peculiar 

 to autumnal months, giving to the pine and hemlock a softer 

 hue than at any other season, and to the swamp maple and 

 the oak a deeper tinge, especially when in contact with the 

 golden orange of the birch and beech? Or what can sur- 

 pass the setter's work, the eager, swift, yet cautious pace, 

 the quick turn on scent of game, the poise so staunch and 

 true, as the odor comes in warm gusts to the sensitive nos- 

 trils; or what again the active reading of the cocker spaniel 

 and his merry yelp when the bird is flushed? Truly these 

 are glorious days, golden links between heated summer and 

 cold winter, and never to be forgotten scenes. 



Of all who love these days the woodcocks seem to love 

 them most and are not loth to take advantage of them amid 

 our sunny glades and hillsides as they wing their way to 

 southern grounds. In their autumn fliglits some choose the 

 slopes covered with brakes and sapling pines, some the 

 knolls cove/cd with birches, others the aider patch and 

 willow covered interval. I have found them on the highest, 

 dryest hills, and in the lowest covers, under hemlocks, near 

 large woods, amid the rocks on a river's bank and among 

 the briers in the open pasture. Verily, the woodcock is a 

 bird of strange caprice, and I well remember the antics I 

 caught one at one autumn day some thirteen years ago, 

 when, with a friend, I was beating a high hilltop for ruffed 

 grouse. Our setter came to a point toward a clump of pines 

 and we expected to hear the rush of the .startled grouse, but 

 not a sound. We peered beneath the trees, and there, upon 

 tlie carpet of pine needles, saw a woodcock strutting about 

 like a turkey cock in miniature, with tail erect spread like a 



