NOTES AND SONG-FLIGHT OF THE WOODCOCK 
(PHILO HE LA MINOR). 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
In 1891, Mr. Walter Faxon and I spent two evenings and 
one morning studying the notes and song-flight of the Wood- 
cock, and the present article consists merely of a transcript of 
the memoranda made on these occasions, — viz., the evenings 
of April 7 and 13, and the morning of April S, the locality 
being Lexington, Massachusetts. 
Lexington , Mass., April 7, 1891.— Mr. Faxon found a 
Woodcock singing on the evenings of the 5th and 6th and the 
morning of the 7th on the top of a high hill near the village. 
I went there with him this evening, arriving at 6.25, when the 
bird was already peeping. There were seven song-flights and 
eight peeping spells in the next thirty-five minutes, the last peep- 
ing being unusually protracted and the bird, at its close, rising and 
flying off low down without singing, at precisely seven o’clock. 
At this time it was still rather light or, at least, not nearly so 
dark as the night afterwards became. The weather was cold 
with a strong northwest wind, the sky overcast. The paaps 
were uttered consecutively 31, 21, 37, 29, and 28 times, no 
counts being made during the first and last calling periods. 
The song proper (timed once only) lasted exactly ten seconds. 
backward, followed by a forward and downward, jerk of the head 
and a slight opening of the wings. The bird did not turn about 
