(c) Birds have been observed visiting singing grounds of other 
males and attempting copulation with a decoy after May 15 when presumably 
most males should be mated if monogamy is the rule. 
(d) Birds were just as easy to decoy after the height of the hatch 
in this area as in early April. No indication of falling off in breed- 
ing activity was observed until mid-May. 
(e) There were two instances of observing a male copulating with a 
female and captured with a decoy a few days later, 
(f) There was one instance of a male observed copulating with a 
decoy while a live female was on the singing ground 8 feet away. It 
could not be proved the other bird was a female but the observer was 
within a few feet and the size and actions of this bird were typical of 
other females seen on singing grounds. 
(zg) In two cases two males were using the same singing ground and 
in each case was captured, the trap reset and the second male attempted 
copulation with the decoy. 
(h) Broods and hatched nests were found in close proximity to males 
which readily decoyed in May. 
It is difficult to believe that a male woodcock will continue a 
courtship display for two months and confine himself to mating with one 
female. It is possible, of course, that a female may visit only one 
singing ground. However, if the hen begins brooding a clutch of eggs 
in mid-April, and the nest is broken up near the end of the incubation 
period there are good chances a different male may be occupying the 
ground where she found her first mate. It seems unlikely she would 
seek her original mate for a second clutch particularly if he had 
moved a mile to a new singing ground, and there were several singing 
males occupying intervening territories between his original singing 
field and the site chosen later in the spring. 
There may well be other reasons for the movements of males from 
one singing ground to another. It is possible that in certain locations 
no mate is found although in some of the concentrated breeding grounds 
described in this study such a2 situation appears unlikely. Some ob- 
servers might well question whether trap capture may not induce a bird 
to move. Experience and observation tend to refute this idea. Birds 
were repeatedly retrapped during 1950 and 1951 on the same sites. When 
visitors were taken afield to observe the trap in operation we invariably 
reset a trap where a bird had been previously captured Since there was a 
greater chance it would be successful. 
Other unknown factors involved may have to do with the physiology 
of individual birds and the differences, if any, in gonad development. 
36 
