54 
1872. 
(Apr.30) 
1874. 
June ' 3. 
• 20 . 
Philohela minor. 
Middlesex County^ Mass. 
hitherto uninterrupted now became broken or divided into 
syllables like e.hipperc hipperchipper~chij3perchipperchi pp- 
or., rapidly in reasing in quickness and volume, and pro¬ 
bably produced by the wing-beats, the pauses represent¬ 
ing intervals of sailing (during this stage of the per¬ 
formance the bird was invisible). At length v/ith a 
\yhit-wit , it began a liquid, estactic warble much like 
that of a water-v^histle and aecelorated in volume and 
sweetness as it approached the ground, till at length it 
ceased abruptly when the bird pitched to the earth. Af¬ 
ter hearing him sing several times v/e rushed to the spot 
whence he rose while ho was in the air, and concealed 
ourselves in a large ground Juniper Just as the last 
notes of his song died away overhead, when the bird 
dropped within five yards of us the rustling of his.feath¬ 
ers being distinctly audible as he closed his wings 
Ho immediately began uttering a loud harsh da-a-au,*whinh 
sounded at a distance like the cry of a Nighthawk, but 
near at hand had a strange vibrating twang. This 
was repeated at iptorvals of about five second each 
and usually about thrity times before the bird rose into 
the air again. It was invariably preceded by a note 
sounding like the the fall of a heavy drop of vmter in 
a cistern, a low .pjt.—u.l, P_t-u_l , pt-ul repeated twice or 
thrice the last utteronee being given in the same breath 
with the a^. Sometimes the latter was suddenly 
choked in the-middle of its utteronee as if by the bir< 
swallowing something. After the light had faded alto¬ 
gether from the west the song ceased, but the other 
notes 'were kept up without intermission. 
In the Warren Run, Waltham, I started a largo Wood¬ 
cock directly under-feot. She flew about ton paces 
and alighting, began to beat the ground with her wings, 
uttering a whining noise like that of a young puppy. 
Searching carefully among the leaves I found a young bird 
about the size of a newly hatched chicken squatting close 
to the ground. It allow ed mo to seize it before mov¬ 
ing but when caught began a plaintive peeping which imme¬ 
diately started three others, who scuttled off at a groat 
pace their down-clad wings hold extended like so many 
ostriches, all peeping loudly. The old bird now came 
up running prettily over the leaves, showing much anxiety 
but never approaching nearer than about two rods. Re¬ 
leasing my little captive he started off after his bro¬ 
thers and I left them. 
Started a pair in the Warren Run, Waltham. The 
female tumbled about on the ground boating her wongs frar^ 
ca y. They must have had a brood of young but I was 
unable to find the latter. ® 
