The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-04-26
THE wooDcocK AND ITS YOUNG.

A month hence the camera hunter
will have chance to picture the fe-
male woodcock sitting upon her nest,
if they can find it. The man who
does this will have cause to plume
himself and strut among his fellows
of the lens, because not half-dozen
photographs of the kind have been
made since Daguerre lived and
wrought.
Of all nests that of the woodcock is
most difficult to discover. In fact a
man may flush woodcock hen every
day for week and never find nest.
So thick is the underground in
which these nests are placed that the
bird is never seen until we'll in the
air, and so cunningly does the nest
match other tangled masses of twigs,
leaves, &C., that distinguishing it is
more matter of chance than skill.
The jacksnipe, the quail, the prairie
chicken and the ruffed grouse are all
expert hiders, but not worthy to be
mentioned in the same day with the
woodcock, which not only inhabits
densely-covered territory but master
ed the entire science of protective col
Grafton centuries ago.
No sitting woodcock was ever yet
discovered except by its large black
eyes. These eyes are set so high in
the head that the bird is able to see
behind it as we'll as in front, and it is
gone, generally noiselessly, long be-
fore the intruder's heavy foot has ap-
preached within ten yards of it.
There have been woodcock nests
found, plenty of them, through the
accident of hunters or fishermen step
ping within six inches of them, but
always were empty save for three or
four mottled eggs.
The female will not pretend to be
broken-winged in order to lure the
searcher from the vicinity of its nest,
though it will do this almost invaria-
bly, if its young are threatened. In
the case of the chicks this act would
seem to be unnecessary, because the
instinct to hide is hatched in them and
they are as expert when one day out
of the shell as they will ever be.
They are then not larger than the
first joint of a mans thumb, and fol-
low closely behind the mother in the
search for food. When danger threat
ems she gives a sharp, short cluck and
is away heavily and clumsily, making
not more than one yard at leap and
falling awkwardly to the ground after
each attempt.
Meanwhile the youngsters in the
twinkling of an eye have disappeared
utterly. They have not run yard ;
they have simply crouched, matched
themselves with any brown object,
blended with it, melted into it.
This instantaneous disappearance is
startling. The man may have his
eye firmly fixed on the hedgings !;
then they go out of his eye and are
| NOT
If he proceeds to the place where
he last saw them and is not extreme
ly careful he will step on one or two
of them and they will never stir, suf-
fering themselves to be mashed fiat.
By kneeling, however, and turning
over dead leaf after leaf he is apt to
uncover one or more of them, buried
sometimes in depression not larger
than an acorn's grave, the little body
reduced to the smallest possible COM
pass, but the black eye wide open.
When uncovered the midget will at
tempt to dart away.
1t is disputed that the woodcock
ever carries its young, but it does do
this when the obstacle is not serious
for instance, a small creek a yard
or two wide. 1t has two ways of do
ing it. Sometimes it will take one
between its strong thighs and flirt
across the water with it; sometimes
a little one will perch upon the moth
er's back.
A female woodcock has been known
to transport its four young over a
thicklygrown fence with ditch run
ming along it, taking them up between
its thighs. 1t never attemps to carry
one in its long bill, differing in this
from the wcod-duck, which uses its
bill in lifting its young from the nest
to the ground at the foot of the tree,
whence they are permitted to waddle
to water as they best can.
Naturalists generally credit the
woodcock hen with producing from
three to four young in season, but
hens have been found with from ten
to twelve chicks. Sometimes their
rude yet scientific nests are filed with
eggs.
In the woodcock family the gray
mare is the better horse, so to speak.
She is always larger and stronger
than the male. 1t is believed that
during incubation he takes his turn
at sitting while his wife forages. AT
any rate, he is never great distance
from the nest until the chicks are led
forth.-W. Y. Sun.