TOLD AROUND THE BIG TABLE 
The Evening Song of the Woodcock 
I have heard the Vesper song of the Woodcock many times 
but never to better advantage than on the evening of April 10, 
1896. A nature loving friend and I left our homes in Lynn 
just before sunset on that date for a tryst with the Woodcock 
in the old Salem pastures. 
As we crossed Floating Bridge the Robins and Song Sparrows 
were singing good night to the sun and the Peepers and Leopard 
Frogs were tuning up for their nightly chorus. The sun had 
set by the time we reached the first bars, leaving the west all 
aglow with rosy light. Turning in on the left, at the bars 
just beyond Long Swamp, we followed a winding path down 
through the hollow and up over the hill to the middle wall 
that cuts the big pastures in two. The color in the west had 
now faded to a dull gray and the song of birds had given 
place wholly to the music of the frogs. 
We crossed the swamp, in whose quiet pools we had watched 
the Fairy Shrimp and the Caddis Worms many times in the 
past, and paused a moment to listen to the frogs when we 
heard the harsh nasal “peent” of the Woodcock on the knoll 
we had just left. Recrossing the swamp we were treated, 
for a half hour or more, to an exhibition that must have 
delighted any bird lover. Many times we heard the song 
directly overhead. Several times the bird alighted very 
near us, not more than twenty or thirty feet away. When 
on the ground he seemed to move around very deliberately 
giving utterance now and then to his harsh cry. Usually he 
would give this fifteen or twenty times before rising but not 
always. Two or three times we saw him as he arose from 
the ground, going up at quite a sharp angle until he reached 
a considerable height when he would fly around in a wide 
circle passing over our heads twice before dropping. We 
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