AMERICAN WOODCOCK.

Quite as interesting in habits is the American Woodcock, the Philohela minor of Gray, which belongs to the grallatorial, rather than to the natatorial, family of birds. In distribution he is somewhat restricted, differing in this respect from his numerous congeneric brethren, which have a wide dispersion. He is chiefly a denizen of the eastern parts of the United States, and of the British territory immediately adjacent. Fort Rice, in north-western Dakota, and Kansas and Nebraska in the West, appear to be the limits of his range in these directions. In the Middle and Eastern States Woodcocks are found in greater abundance than anywhere else. While the bulk pass North to breed, a few remain in the South and raise their happy little families in spite of the ardor of the climate.

Few migrants arrive earlier at their breeding-grounds. They usually appear from the fifth to the tenth of March in New England and the Middle Atlantic States, although instances are recorded where they have been observed as early as the twenty-fourth of February. These cases are rare, however, and only happen, if at all, when the weather has been remarkably auspicious for a lengthy spell. As a few birds have been known to winter in the North, when the season has been unusually mild, their emergence from sheltered localities so early might be construed by persons not cognizant of their presence, or of their occasional winter sojourn, as a case of recent arrival. In view of this fact, it would be difficult to prove that a bird seen in winter had just come from the South, unless discovered in transitu.

Small companies, from four to six in number, start together upon the migratory tour. Low, swampy thickets invite their presence upon reaching their destination. Here they conceal themselves during the day, but when night has gathered dark they come out of their grassy retreats and wander about in quest of food. From the setting of the sun behind the western hills to the appearance of the first streaks of dawn in the east, they pursue their nocturnal rambles. Few persons have visited these birds in their accustomed haunts while foraging. Let me take the reader to some neighboring swamp, or by the side of some lonely woodland, which these birds delight to frequent. The utmost silence must be maintained, or they will be frightened away. While it will be difficult to see the creatures that have called us hither, yet we know they are not far away by the rustle they produce among the dry leaves, and by the peculiar notes they emit. Chipper, chip-per, chip may be heard from the right, and almost at the next instant it is varied to bleat or bleat ta bleat ta, produced in the contrary direction, or off in the distance, showing that the authors of these sounds have changed their positions. While these birds have a habitual fondness for humid thickets, they not infrequently betake themselves to corn-fields and other cultivated tracts in close proximity, and even to elevated woods.

For more than a fortnight after their arrival the sexes, though feeding in company, do not apparently manifest a disposition to assume conjugal relationship. The desire for food seems to outweigh every other consideration. The inclemency of the weather, and the coldness of the earth, may have much to do with holding the amatory forces in check. But when the opportune period arrives, which it does in the course of events, the sexes desist in a measure from their riotous living and give the nobler instincts of their being a chance to assert their power. The males are the first to feel the changes which are being wrought in their natures. For more than a week from the incipiency of this feeling, in the early morning and evening hours, they may be seen exercising themselves by means of “curious spiral gyrations” in mid-air, and uttering, as earthwards they descend, a note which has been likened to the word kwank. This note may be a call to the female in the spring, but as it is often uttered in the fall after the breeding-season is past, it may also be a summons for the gathering together of the members of the same household. The production of these sounds seems a labor of very great effort. But the movements of the males at these times must be seen to be appreciated. The head and bill are bent forward until the latter comes into contact with the ground, and, just as the sound is being emitted, the body is urged violently forward. These spasmodic exertions having ceased, the actor in this drama twitches his abbreviated, half-spread tail, assumes an erect attitude of listening, and, if no response is elicited, repeats his characteristic cry with all its accompanying movements. If the call awakes an answering note, the happy lover flies to the presence of the one he seeks and lavishes upon her the most endearing caresses. Sometimes, as Audubon affirms, the male awaits the arrival of the dear one, and does not fly to meet her. The summons, according to the same eminent authority, seem sometimes to be replied to by one of the same sex, which is always the prelude to a fierce encounter between the two, for, on such occasions, when the feelings are in a high state of tension, the most intense enmity exists between the males. But these contentions are ordinarily short-lived, and cease with the assumption of matrimonial relations.

The happiness of the male is now complete. With his homely but prepossessing bride by his side, he soon journeys off in search of a home. This is a matter of great consequence, and tasks the patience to the utmost. But their labors are eventually crowned with success. The most secluded resorts are visited, and in some low, dense and swampy woods or brake, difficult of access, and one that none but the cruel collector would be likely to find, they hide away their nest. The structure is generally placed on the ground, at the foot of a bush or tussock, in the midst of small birches or alders, or on a decayed stump or prostrate log. In certain localities, it is snugly nestled in the midst of a meadow. It is by no means an elaborate affair, but merely consists of a few dried leaves or grasses which are scratched together by the female, and the work of a few brief hours at the most.

WOODCOCK ON NEST (Showing protective coloring)

Being ready for occupancy, the female soon commences to deposit her eggs. These, to the number of three or four, are laid one at a time on consecutive days. Oviposition, in the Southern States, commences in February or March, while in the northern limits of the bird’s range from the tenth to the fifteenth of April, seldom later. Both birds perform the labor of incubation, and so attentive are they to the business that it is an unusual occurrence to find both absent from the nest at the same time. When the female is sitting the male busies himself in attending to the demands of hunger; and when her turn has come the care of the nest is resigned to her noble, conscientious lord. So faithfully do they keep to the nest that nothing short of the most menacing danger will compel them to leave. The approach of a team or a pedestrian, even when within a few feet of its location, has not been known to startle them. But when the danger is quite imminent the sitting bird slips out of the nest and makes her way into the tall grasses, where, hidden from view, she becomes a silent and sorrowful witness of any disaster that may befall her home. Should no destruction be perpetrated, and the intruder has gone his way, she cautiously comes out of her place of concealment and resumes her labors. But she has learned a very impressive lesson, for on a second visit to the nest no bird is to be seen. Apprised of the coming of danger, she has slipped out in time to escape detection. Thus, patiently, persistently and unweariedly these faithful creatures apply themselves by turns to the task of sitting until success has crowned their willing labors. The time spent in hatching is, under the most favorable conditions, from seventeen to eighteen days.

AMERICAN WOODCOCK.
Mother Flying Away With Young Between Her Feet.

The young are very timid creatures and keep close to their parents. Considerable solicitude is shown by the latter for their well-being. Their helpless infancy, so to speak, is watched over with all the care that a human mother bestows upon her offspring, and when their lives are endangered recourse is had to many a ruse to deceive their enemies and bring them into places of security. When severely pressed by foes, the mother, by a peculiar alarm, warns them of the state of things, and while they are scattering in different directions seeks to attract attention to herself in many a well-feigned artifice. In her anxiety for their safety, she has even been observed to seize between her two feet a youngling and fly with it away—a behavior whose purpose seemed to be the diversion of the enemy from the rest of the brood, thus giving them a chance to flee from impending peril to places of security in the surrounding verdure. After all danger has disappeared, she summons them together again by a familiar call, and doubtless relates to them the story of her adventures and the dangers from which they were saved. Worms, animalcula, ants and other soft-bodied insects, which the parents assist them in procuring from the soft earth, and from beneath the grass and dead leaves that abound in the places they frequent, constitute their food. Later on they are able to obtain their subsistence, with all the address of older birds, by thrusting their bills into the soil and in such other places as would be likely to contain the objects desired. Their tongues, covered with a viscid saliva, adhere to the food, and when drawn into the mouth carry it with them without danger of being lost. All who have made these birds a study have often discerned holes made in the soft mud by their bills. The presence of these “borings,” as they are called, is always an indication that game is not far distant, which a careful exploration of the locality soon verifies. The young, when matured, continue to occupy the same haunts with their parents, and, unless brought to an untimely death by the merciless gun of the hunter, repair to the warm, sunny, smiling South with the return of frost. In the Middle States—and the same is doubtless true of other sections of our great country—there is never more than a single brood raised, although the early breeding of the species would certainly afford time for a second hatching before the close of the season. Less pyriform are the eggs of the Woodcock than waders’ mostly are, being, in some instances, almost ovoidal. Their ground-color varies from a light clay to one of buffy-brown, and the markings occur in the form of fine spots and blotches of chocolate-brown, interspersed with others of obscure lilac, more or less thickly scattered over the surface of the egg, their size and intensity of color bearing, in general, a direct correspondence with the depth of the background. Remarkable variations of size exist throughout the species’ range, some being short and broad, while others are long and narrow. A set of three from Pennsylvania, which the writer carefully measured, showed an average measurement of 1.54 by 1.21 inches.

So familiar a bird as the Woodcock, which is sometimes termed the Bog-sucker or Wood-snipe, hardly needs description. He has a thick, heavily-set body, short and thick neck, and large head, bill and eyes, and ears beneath the visual organs. His wings are short and rounded, the first three primaries being very narrow and shorter than the fourth, and the fourth and fifth the largest. The tarsi are about one and one-fourth inches long and rather stout, the tibiæ feathered to the joints, and the toes long and slender, and without marginal membranes or basal webs. More than two and a half inches in length is the bill, straight, tapering, and stout at base, with ridge at base of maxilla high, and the upper mandible a little larger than the lower, and knobbed at the end. Three long grooves, one on ridge above, and the others on each side of maxilla, complete the structural details of the bill. The sexes are alike, the female being larger than the male. Adult specimens vary from ten to twelve inches in length, and have an expanse of wings of from fifteen to eighteen inches, and a weight ranging from four to nine ounces. The eyes are brown, legs and bill of the dried skin pale-brownish, upper parts black, gray, russet and brown, chin whitish, and rest of under parts different shades of brownish-red.

So exquisitely sensible is the extremity of the bill, as in the snipe, that these birds are enabled to collect their food by the mere touch, without using their eyes, which are set at such a distance and elevation in the back part of the head as to give them an aspect of stupidity. The eyes being situated high up and far back is a wise provision of nature, as, by this peculiarity, they escape many of their enemies, their field of vision being greatly augmented by such an arrangement. Obtaining their sustenance, as they largely do, by probing with their bills, so amply endowed with nerves, they have comparatively little use for their eyes, unless to keep watch for their numerous foes.

Though well known to the sportsman, yet by the casual observer this bird is frequently confounded with the Wilson’s snipe. But the error can readily be avoided, if it is borne in mind that the Woodcock has the entire lower parts, including the lining of wings, a reddish-brown color, while the snipe has the abdomen white, the throat and upper parts of the breast speckled, and the lining of the wings barred with white and black.