THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
and neck much puffed out, every few minutes giving vent to their peculiar 
cry, which consists of a whistling note like pisp, followed by three deep 
guttural croaks, ork, ork, ork. The flight, which lasts about twenty or 
thirty minutes, generally follows a triangular course, the same bird often 
passing several times over almost precisely the same spot. 
A few years ago the writer spent five months camping in the Azores, 
where the woodcock is an extremely common bird on the higher grounds 
of some of the islands, and had exceptional opportunities of studying its 
habits and of obtaining a large series of specimens, the sex in every in- 
stance being carefully determined. On the island of San Jorge they were 
especially numerous, and during the month of May a dozen or more 
might be seen on the wing any evening going through their strange per- 
formance. There being no law to prevent it, the Portuguese shoot the 
woodcock when “ roding ” all through the breeding-season, and con- 
sidering the way the birds are constantly persecuted, it is astonishing 
that they should be so numerous. In former times our ancestors used 
to set their nets called “ cock shuts ” and catch the flighting males ; 
and in many parts of the continent it is still a common practice to shoot 
them during their love -flight. Our hut on San Jorge was situated on the 
high ground amongst patches of giant heath, broom, and other bushes, 
and many woodcocks nesting in the neighbouring coverts passed over our 
camp during their evening flight. At sunset a male and female were some- 
times seen to rise together from a patch of broom; the latter uttering 
a shrill whistle, would make straight for her feeding-ground leaving the 
male to continue his solemn evening flight. On one or two occasions two 
males were seen to meet in their roding, and chase one another along 
the hill -side, their slow, straight and measured flight suddenly changing 
to one of twisting lightning speed. 
The roding of the woodcock is evidently analogous to the “ bleating ” 
of the common snipe, but while the former produces the sounds with his 
throat, the latter drums with the outer tail-feathers ; also, both male 
and female snipe drum at the moments when they make their down- 
ward slanting flights, whereas only the male woodcock utters the peculiar 
call described above during his roding. 
Nesting . — ^The nest of the woodcock is a very simple affair, being merely 
a depression in the ground, lined with dead grass and leaves. The spot 
selected is generally among gorse, broom, bracken and such -like cover; 
often in fir-woods, among long heather, or in oak-woods and other coverts 
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