Cambridge, Mass.
1906.
Nov. 30
  Partly cloudy with fresh westerly winds. Rather cold.
  On reaching the Museum this morning I was shown a 
living Woodcock which Charles E. Larsen our gardener had
captured in our clothes yard an hour or two before. This 
bird, a fine large female in perfect plumage and condition,
must have struck against our telephone wire (which is stretched
above the yard at a height of about twenty feet) while
attempting to pass over or perhaps to alight in, the garden,
during the night or possibly at daybreak. It had scalped
itself in the usual manner all the feathers and most of
the skin having been scraped off the skull over a space
about a quarter or an inch in width by rather more than
an inch in length extending somewhat obliquely across the
top of the head from just above the left eye to a
point above but about half an inch behind the right eye.
As in the case of the scalped Woodcock which was brought
to me from Gray's woods by a boy in April 1900 the
injury just described appeared to have affected only the
wings for the bird caught by Larsen this morning, although
unable to fly, ran about very actively both before and
after capture and seemed to be in excellent health and
spirits. It was placed at first in an old bird cage where
it trotted to and fro ceaselessly for an hour or more
thrusting its long bill out between the wires and pressing
its breast against them in futile efforts to escape.
Later in the day we transferred it to a roomy box
provided with slatted sides and filled to a good depth
with fresh loam in which were placed a large number of
earth worms. With these quarters it seemed better content
for it soon ceased its restless movements and settled itself
in a position of repose which it maintained through the day.