404 Marston's Mills, MASS. 1876. (Dec. 5) last woodcock of the season) D. coronata abundant on Copi boat. in sight an complete, festooned with hill briar and wild grape vines. Only by the pathway of the brook can it be penetrated, or in many places the grape vines are swung across that so thickly that it is very hard to get through them. All the way down little springy bushes empty into the brook after spreading about through the cove on either side. When some fresh and many of them won't lay as green as a June meadow. When the birds say & fled a great part of the time though they go down on the best marshes a good deal at night to feed on the flats exposed by the tide, I started soon in all this afternoon and shot down them only one of which however my dog found but that one he pointed dead in good style. They acted differently from any birds that I ever saw. As I waded down the brook they would rise with a many whirring &fluttering wings and toppling the trees like woodcock, fly off & sit down or up the brook. Others would start from the bank and flit in superb silence low over the brook for fifteen yards or more & light again. In this way I started on some five or six times before I got a shot, always driving him ahead of me. Only on that I flushed in a little meadow plus & scared it in the usual style. Capt. B. affirms that he saw a woodcock him in January. & I examined a Ralls Oriskans which he shot Nov. 30th, 1872 in the place. Saw upwards of 50 Bend coronata a M. melodia a large flock of S. magna, a flock of Os! Alpestis. I have no doubt that D. coronates another thousand members.