Vol. LXXXVII OCTOBER. 1918 No. 10 
OUR DEAR OLD FRIEND, THE WOODCOCK 
TO THOSE WHO KNOW HIM INTIMATELY THE BIG-EYED, LONG-BILLED WHISTLING 
GOBLIN OF THE ALDERS IS THE MYSTERIOUS PERFECTED CAMOUFLAGE OF THE COVER 
TAKING of 
woodcock —• once 
I was called to 
appear before 
the Committee 
on Game and 
Fish of one of 
the New Eng¬ 
land State’s Leg¬ 
islature to pre¬ 
sent my views as 
for or against a proposed closed season 
on woodcock. The august body listened 
very attentively; but its chairman, in 
spite of all I could say, finally rose to re¬ 
mark that nothing could change his views 
on the subject. He 
was “agin all shoot¬ 
ing of these harmless 
birds.” “Why,” said 
he, “they are so tame 
about my house, they 
come rapping and 
tapping up and down 
the old cherry tree 
right at the kitchen 
door.” 
Perhaps Herkimer 
Hopkins, chairman of 
the Fish and Game 
Commission, was a 
little off his course 
and not strictly quali¬ 
fied to pass on Game 
legislation; but our 
dear old friend the 
woodcock —- doodle 
bug—timber doodle— 
spook bird of the 
birches—is known in¬ 
timately but to his 
friends, and many a 
man who could pass 
well up in class or¬ 
nithology— to whom 
robin and thrush, blue bird, kingfisher, even 
the cuckoo are old friends—would falter 
and fall down when pressed for a passing 
sketch of our big eyed, long-billed whistling 
joblin of the alders. To me he is the mys- 
erious perfected camouflage of the cover 
By EDWARD WILBUR 
Illustrations from Drawings cy Edmund Osthaus 
and I have patiently picked out hundreds 
of them huddled on the brown leaves ahead 
of many a good dog’s nose—only to won¬ 
der if it was bird, or but an “eerie whistle 
and brown wings.” 
Woodcock shooting is the perfection of 
upland sport with the small bore gun, but 
to really enjoy it the gunner must know his 
game and his cover and work in full accord 
with a good dog. 
Woodcock do not like old cover, and what 
one year would be ideal ground will be 
passed over as a dining table when the 
growth of birches too completely shade the 
ground. 
Native birds and flight birds do not use 
the same ground. Early in the season the 
native will be found in birch cover through 
which a brook flows, or where springs keep 
the ground cool and moist. In such cover 
shooting is difficult as the upward spring 
of the bird at the flush carries him into the 
birch leaves still hanging, and his cheery 
whistle oftimes is all that "tell tales” the 
way his bill points—and a snap shot only 
brings the yellow leaves to earth while the 
brown whistler wings on. Native birds do 
not go far after a flush and a persistent 
search with a good dog will locate the portly 
person about two yards in front of his nose 
just on the edge of the cover. There he sits 
blended with the brown carpet of oak leaves 
and as ypu cast your eye about, it looks to 
you as if this particular doodle bug had 
reached the age limit; and when an instant 
later he comes tumbling down through the 
painted leaves and you take him from 
old Joe’s mouth and smooth those beauti¬ 
fully penciled 'brown 
feathers, you really 
wish (now, don’t 
you?) that he’d whis¬ 
tle away again—dear 
old simple baby bird 
—back into the cov¬ 
ets behind the Moon. 
Much as I love my 
dear old friend I am 
not prepared to laud 
him as a brainy sub¬ 
ject, and yet I have 
seen symptoms of the 
working of his gray 
matter which led one 
gentleman out of 
danger. I was hunt¬ 
ing in New England 
in company with a 
friend and one dog 
between us. Down a 
hillside in the edge 
of a p a rtic ularly 
heavy piece of birch 
cover through which 
the dog was work¬ 
ing my friend called 
“point” and then 
“mark” and a woodcock came directly 
toward me. I was rather inclined to 
see the dog point again and give my 
friend a shot, so never stirred as the 
bird came toward me and lit in a little path 
within ten feet. No sooner had the bird 
Herkimer Hopkins in action 
Contents Copyright, 1918 by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
