abroad,—mostly, it is presumed, from Scandinavia. These arrive
on the east coast in autumn—generally about the middle of October—often
in an exhausted and impoverished state. If unmolested,
they are soon rested, pass inland, and, as would appear, in a marvellously
short time recover their condition. Their future destination
seems to be greatly influenced by the state of the weather. If cold or
frost stop their supply of food on the eastern side of Great Britain
they press onward and, letting alone Ireland, into which the
immigrant stream is pretty constant, often crowd into the extreme
south-west, as Devonshire and Cornwall, and to the Isles of Scilly,
while not a few betake themselves to the unknown ocean, finding
there doubtless a watery grave, though instances are on record of
examples having successfully crossed the Atlantic and reaching
Newfoundland, New Jersey and Virginia.
With regard to the woodcock which breed in Britain, pairing takes place very early in February and the eggs are laid often before the middle of March. These are four in number, of a yellowish cream-colour blotched and spotted with reddish brown, and seldom take the pyriform shape so common among those of Limicoline birds. The nest—always made on the ground amid trees or underwood, and usually near water or at least in a damp locality—is at first little more than a slight hollow in the soil, but as incubation proceeds dead leaves are collected around its margin until a considerable mass is accumulated. During this season the male woodcock performs at twilight flights of a remarkable kind, repeating evening after evening (and it is believed at dawn also) precisely the same course, which generally describes a triangle, the sides of which may be a quarter of a mile or more long. On these occasions the bird's appearance on the wing is quite unlike that which it presents when hurriedly flying after being flushed, and though its speed is great the beats of the wings are steady and slow. At intervals an extraordinary sound is produced, whether from the throat of the bird, as is commonly averred, or from the plumage is uncertain. This characteristic flight is in some parts of England called “roading,” and the track taken by the bird a “cock-road.”[1] In England in former times advantage was taken of this habit to catch the simple performer in nets called “cock-shutts,” which were hung between trees across the open glades or rides of a wood. A still more interesting matter in relation to the breeding of woodcocks is the fact, finally established on good evidence, that the old birds transport their newly hatched offspring, presumably to places where food is more accessible. The young are clasped between the thighs of the parent, whose legs hang down during the operation, while the bill is to some extent, possible only at starting, brought into operation to assist in adjusting the load if not in bearing it through the air.[2]
Woodcock inhabit suitable localities across the northern part of the Old World, from Ireland to Japan, migrating southward towards autumn. As a species they are said to be resident in the Azores and other Atlantic Islands; but they are not known to penetrate very far into Africa during the winter, though in many parts of India they are abundant during the cold weather, and reach even Ceylon and Tenasserim. The popular belief that woodcock live “by suction” is perhaps hardly yet exploded; but those who have observed them in confinement know that they have an almost insatiable appetite for earthworms, which the birds seek by probing soft ground with their highly sensitive and flexible bill.[3] This fact seems to have been first placed on record by Bowles,[4] who noticed it in the royal aviary at San Ildefonso in Spain, and it has been corroborated by other observers, and especially by Montagu, who discovered that bread and milk made an excellent substitute for their ordinary food. They also do well on chopped raw meat.
The eastern part of North America possesses a woodcock, much smaller than, though generally (and especially in habits) similar to, that of the Old continent. It is the Scolopax minor of most authors; but, chiefly on account of its having the outer three primaries remarkably attenuated, it has been placed in a separate genus, Philohela. In Java is found a distinct and curiously coloured species, described and figured by Horsfield (Trans. Linn. Society, xiii. p. 191, and Zoolog. Researches, pl.) as S. saturata. To this H. Seebohm (Geographical Distribution of the Family Charadriidae, p. 506) referred the S. rosenbergi of Schlegel (Nederl. Tijds. v. d. Dierkunde, iv. p. 54) from New Guinea. Another species is S. rochusseni from the Moluccas; this has, like the snipe, the lower part of the tibia bare of feathers. (A. N.)
WOOD ENGRAVING, the art of engraving (q.v.) on wood, by lines so cut that the design stands in relief. This method of engraving was historically the earliest, done for the purpose of taking impressions upon paper or other material. It is natural that wood engraving should have occurred first to the primitive mind, because the manner in which woodcuts are printed is the most obvious of all the kinds of printing. If a block of wood is inked with a greasy ink and then pressed on a piece of paper, the ink from the block will be transferred at once to the paper, on which we shall have a black patch exactly the size and shape of the inked surface. Now, suppose that the simple Chinese who first discovered this was ingenious enough to go a step further, it would evidently occur to him that if one of the elaborate signs, each of which in his own language stood for a word, were drawn upon the block of wood, in reverse, and then the whole of the white wood sufficiently cut away to leave the sign in relief, an image of it might be taken on the paper much more quickly than the sign could be copied with a camel-hair brush and Indian ink. No sooner had this experiment been tried and found to answer than block-printing was discovered, and from the printing of signs to the printing of rude images of things, exactly in the same manner, the step was so easy that it must have been made insensibly. Wood engraving, then, is really nothing but that primitive block-cutting which prepared for the printer the letters in relief now replaced by movable types, and the only difference between a delicate modern woodcut and the rude letters in the first printed books is a difference of artistic skill and knowledge. In Chinese and Japanese woodcuts we can still recognize traditions of treatment which come from the designing of their written characters. The main elements of a Chinese or a Japanese woodcut, uninfluenced by European example, are dashing or delicate outlines and markings of various thickness, exactly such as a clever writer with the brush would make with his Indian ink or vermilion. Often we get a perfectly black blot, exquisitely shaped and full of careful purpose, and these broad vigorous blacks are quite in harmony with the kind of printing for which wood engraving is intended.
It has not hitherto been satisfactorily ascertained whether wood engraving came to Europe from the East or was rediscovered by some European artificer. The precise date of the first European woodcut is also a matter of doubt, but here we have certain data which at least set limits to the possibility of error. European wood engraving dates certainly from the first quarter of the 15th century. It used to be believed that a cut of St Christopher (now in the Rylands library, Manchester), rudely executed and dated 1423, was the Adam of all our woodcuts, but since 1844 investigations have somewhat shaken this theory. There is a cut in the Brussels library, of the “Virgin and Child” surrounded by four saints, which is dated 1418, but the composition is so elegant and the drawing so refined and beautiful, that one has a difficulty in accepting the date, though it is received by many as authentic, while it is repudiated by others in the belief that the letters have been tampered with. The “Virgin and Child” of the Paris library is without date, but is supposed, apparently with reason, to be earlier than either of the two mentioned; and Delaborde proved that two cuts were printed in 1406. The “Virgin and Child” at Paris may be taken as a good representative specimen of very early European wood engraving. It is simple art, but not bad art. The forms are drawn in bold thick lines, and the black blot is used with much effect in the hollows and recesses of the design. Beyond this there is no shading. Rude as the work is, the artist has expressed exquisite maternal tenderness in the chief details of the design. The Virgin is crowned, and stands against a niche-like decoration with pinnacles as often seen in illuminated manuscripts. In the woodcut this architectural decoration is boldly but effectively drawn. Here, then, we have real art already, art in which appeared both vigour of style and tenderness of feeling.
The earliest wood engraving consisted of outlines and white spaces with smaller black spaces, cut with a knife, not with a graver, and shading lines are rare or absent. Before passing
- ↑ The etymology and consequently the correct spelling of these expressions seem to be very uncertain. Some would derive the word from the French rôder, to rove or wander, but others connect it with the Scandinavian rode, an open space in a wood (see Notes and Queries, ser. 5, ix. p. 214, and ser. 6, viii. pp. 523, 524). Looking to the regular routine followed by the bird, the natural supposition would be that it is simply an application of the English word road.
- ↑ Cf. J. E. Harting, Zoologist (1879), pp. 433–440, and Mr Wolf's excellent illustration. Sir R. Payne-Gallwey, in the “Badminton Library” (Shooting, ii. p. 118, note), states that he himself has witnessed the performance.
- ↑ The pair of muscles said by Loche (Expl. Scient. de l'Algérie, ii. p. 293) to exist in the maxilla, and presumably to direct the movement of the bill, do not seem to have been precisely described.
- ↑ Introduccion a la historia natural y a la geografia fiscia de España, pp. 454, 455 (Madrid, 1775).
