THE WOODCOCK 
a beetle should stir in his domain unchallenged. 
He isagood watchman Droleen with a throat 
like a fairy policeman's rattle, and in colouring 
a little woodcock, russet and sepia pencilled. 
During the week that the cold snap lasted 
Creaman learned to recognize his alarm note of 
twenty lilliputian curses run together into a 
trill, and to regard it. No matter how busily 
Droleen was grub-hunting, the thud of the 
Man's approaching footsteps never failed to 
send him skimming through the brambles like 
a minute partridge, and his challenge always 
woke Creaman. For a week the Man came 
constantly through Garrybrack with his dog 
and gun. The woods were littered with the 
empty brown cylinders which showed where 
he shot. In fact Creaman became quite used 
to the periodic alarm, and even adapted to the 
peculiar hunting methods of the dog a trick 
which he had proved efficacious to deceive a 
fox. In the middle of the bramble patch was 
a clump of beech saplings to which the 
shrivelled leaves still clung. Underneath it 
was passably warm and dry, and Creaman often 
lay there. With his soft mottled plumage and 
shifting flight, Nature has given the woodcock 
what is as good protection as either his faint 
transient trail. Hence the dog must be very 
close to wind;him, and as he walked slovenly 
9 1 
