Lake Umbagog. 
At- evening Chapman and I walked to the Tyler Bay. As we 
M 
were following a wood road over the crest of the hill on the old 
Abbott Farm we started a Woodcock from the path. She flew only a 
few yards and then began beatihg her wings on the ground at the same 
time keeping up a low mewing not unlike that of a Cat-bird. This was 
evidently designed to attract our notice to her and to lead us away 
from her young. We stood still and she soon ceased fluttering and 
began to run about,uttering a wholly different sound ( very duck-like in 
Ujfitrd&edb- 
jsharacter and closely resembling the low conversational quacking that 
Black Ducks make when a number are feeding in company. This we interp¬ 
reted as a note of warning to the young,bidding them keep still. We 
bould find only one of them ( a bird as large as a Bluebird,still cover*- 
■ 
fsd with down but with the wing quills sprouting. It sat on the ground 
in the path with head and neck up like a bird on the nest_a marvellous-^ 
ii.y beautiful little creature. Not a muscle did it move when we stoop— 
ed low over it. We kept motionless not far off for several minutes 
* 
but the mother would not come to it. When we returned twenty minutes 
later it and the mother had disappeared. 
