THE WOODCOCK 
tip flicked the surface as he pulled up short in 
his pounce, and followed his fluttering quarry 
across the swamp. Therefore the man missed 
the last page of this history, as it was written 
in Garrybrack in scattered feathers draggled 
piteously. And neither did he find the four 
eggs under the fern stub, nor see the mateless 
woodcock who brooded over them.* 
* In justice to what is as a rule the most useful and 
harmless of birds, it must be said that it is very rare indeed 
for the barn owl to attack and kill a woodcock ; and then 
probably only when bad weather, or some such accident, has 
caused a shortage of the owPs proper food. M. D. H. 
107 
