Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1885 — The Woodcock’s Wooing. [ARTICLE]

The Woodcock’s Wooing.

Woodcock have certain peculiarities which endear them to sportsmen as well as make them an interesting study to men of science. Their love-making' is essentially their own. Early in the spring the male bird seeking a mate repairs to some well-known covert where the females most do congregate. It is just at sunset. All day long he has been filling himself full of long lucious worms, and as nightfall comes his bird thoughts turn to affairs more sentimental. When he reaches the parade ground he looks anxiously around, and if no suspicious noise jars on his sensitive ears, he begins with a low introductory overture. Then he grows impatient and utters loud, gutteral bleatings, clucking just before each one. Then he struts up and down the mossy banks, as if his performance gave him intense satisfaction. Then he considers himself fairly introduced, and, taking wing, rises in the air, flying in spiral circles, each -growing smaller as he ascends. During the flight he utters a low, sweet, cooing note. After sailing about he swoops down to the spot of his starting. For hours he fools about, displaying his wing performances until' the female can no longer resist his antics, and throwing coquetry, as Hamlet did physic to the dogs, she approaches with ruffled feathers and disheveled' plumage. The two meet and caress each other with every evidence of affection and all the by-plays of love thrown in, and, locking their long bills, as if; too happy for earth, they rise straight iuto the air, and fly far out of sight in-. * the darkness.— Burlington (N. J.\ Enterprise.