BY THE WAYSIDE 
towards explaining the homing instinct. 
All animals possess it to a certain degree, 
and even some people appear to have 
slight traces of it in what we call a strong 
sense of locality. It must be very pro¬ 
nounced in migratory birds, but it seems 
to culminate in the homing pigeon, and 
it is man in this case, who is responsible 
foa its remarkable development. He has 
made the homing pigeon what it is 
through artificial selection. But as often 
happens he is working with a force he 
knows nothing about. It seems impossi¬ 
ble that we should ever know how these 
little creatures are able to fly at a tre¬ 
mendous rate of speed, sometimes hun¬ 
dreds of miles, over a country they have 
never seen before, back to their homes. 
■ ' * - • J. T. G. 
The American Woodcock. 
On a warm, wet day in the spring of 
1905 my brothers and I went out for a 
little search in the boggy places along 
the Illinois River, north of Henry, for 
the American Woodcock which is so fast 
becoming extinct. None of us had ever 
seen the Woodcock although we had 
heard of it and had read a great deal 
about its ways of searching for food. 
One way is bv drilling many holes in the 
ground, and beaming on the surface with 
his wings; then he waits for the worms 
he feeds on to come out, and then the 
performance is repeated until his appe¬ 
tite is satisfied. 
The nest and eggs of the Woodcock 
are difficult to find as they are very near 
the color of the dead leaves and bushes 
around them. When approached the 
Woodcock lies close to the ground hold¬ 
ing its long bill as near its breast as pos¬ 
sible in order to conceal it. W hen fin¬ 
ished it will flutter a short distance with 
59 
a whirring, whistling sound of the Wings, 
but it can be approached again as before. 
The eggs are shaped somewhat like 
those of a Killdeer and are a brownish 
color. 
Spencer Stansell. 
The following letter received by the 
Editor will interest manv bird lovers. 
An explanation of the phenomenon has 
kindly been furnished by Mr. 0. B. Zim¬ 
merman. 
‘‘Something so unusual happened here 
January 3rd, that I wondered if it oc¬ 
curred anywhere else and what the ex¬ 
planation, is. You remember that the 
1 :x t. a I 
day was heavy, almost foggy. About 9 
o’clock we first noticed this. From 
every side came soft, sweet bird calls al¬ 
most as thrilling as bluebirds’ calls. Al¬ 
though it seemed as if there must be verv 
many birds, gaot one could be seen; so I 
do not know what they were. Were 
they flying or perched? I could not tell. 
How long their concert lasted I do-not 
know, but they were keeping it up at 10 
o’clock. Perhaps the warm air made 
them dream of summer, and they were 
talking about it in their sleep.” 
•‘Undoubtedly the incident was some¬ 
thing as follows: We have occasional 
visits from great hordes of Snow Buntings, 
Lapland Longspurs and Red Poll Lin¬ 
nets during our winters. No doubt the 
birds mentioned were either the first or 
the last of these. Tha day and night 
being foggy, these birds feared to come 
down., We frequently have this same 
phenomenon in the spring. . The birds 
circle about for some time, sometimes 
hours, and not more than a few blocks 
away from starting point. T believe you 
would find some interesting information 
on this point in "The Auk ,” a periodical 
devoted to Ornithology.” 
