Note 23 — A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL

While this book is passing through the press (April 30th, 1885) I am privileged with another sight and sound of the woodcock's vespertine performance, and under peculiarly favorable conditions. In the account given above, sufficient distinction is not made between the clicking noise, heard while the bird is soaring, and the sounds which signalize his descent. The former is probably produced by the wings, although I have heretofore thought otherwise, while the latter are certainly vocal, and no doubt intended as a song. But they are little if at all louder than the click, click of the wings, and as far as I have ever been able to make out are nothing more than a series of quick, breathless whistles, with no attempt at either melody or rhythm.

In the present instance I could see only the start and the "finish," when the bird several times passed directly by and over me, as I stood in a cluster of low birches, within two or three rods of his point of departure. His angle of flight was small; quite as if he had been going and coming from one field to another, in the ordinary course. Once I timed him, and found that he was on the wing for a few seconds more than a minute.