THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
rusticula) he had often noticed that this bird, when wounded, manages 
to make for himself, with the aid of his beak and feathers, a very ingenious 
dressing; whichever the case may be, he knows exactly how to apply 
a plaster to a bleeding wound, or to fix a solid ligature round a broken 
limb. He shot, one day, one of these birds which had an old wound on its 
breast, and which was covered by a large plaster composed of small, 
downy feathers plucked from different parts of its body and fixed firmly 
on the wound by the dry blood. Another time he found another plaster 
made in exactly the same way on a bird’s back. Twice he found wood- 
cocks which had ligatures of feathers tied and twisted round the part 
where the bone had been fractured. In one case the right leg, just above 
the cartilage, was strongly, but quite recently bound round with feathers, 
which the bird had taken from its back and breast. In the other case the 
cartilage itself, which was almost completely healed, still had the band 
that had maintained it in position. The most curious and at the same 
time the most unfortunate case was that of a woodcock which had both 
of its legs fractured by shot, and which was only picked up the following 
day. The poor bird had put feather plasters and bandages round both 
its legs, using one bandage only for one leg, and that was broken in two 
different places; but as it was obliged to operate in a most awkward 
position, and deprived of the use of its claws, it was unable to get rid 
of some feathers that had stuck and curled round the end of its beak, 
and which were causing it to die of hunger. 
“Although its wounds were splendidly dressed, and although it was 
still able to fly, it was terribly thin. This indisputable proof of the in- 
telligence of a bird which has always been considered rather stupid, 
because people have put a wrong interpretation on its name,* appears 
sufficiently interesting to be inscribed in the annals of biology.” 
It seems highly improbable that any woodcock deliberately binds up its 
wounds, and we do not for a moment believe that it really does so. The 
feathers and mud adhering to old wounds are no doubt purely accidental, 
and are not deliberately placed there by the bird ; also, the supposed liga- 
tures of feathers round a broken leg might easily become twisted round 
the limb when the bird is crawling wounded along the ground. 
In confinement, woodcocks make interesting pets, becoming very tame, 
and display the same love of warmth shown by the snipe. 
W. R. OGILVIE- GRANT. 
*In France the woodcock is called grand bee, w-hile the same term is used to designate a stupid person. 
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