A farmer, who knew the region well, told us that woodcock used to be common about a certain swamp, but had not been so, he thought, of recent years. We visited it, of course, but heard nothing. Then the same man bethought himself of a likelier place, farther away. Thither, also, we went, having to hasten our steps, for the bird must be caught at precisely such a minute, between daylight and dark. Still we had our labor for our pains. And so the season passed, with nothing done. Then, a year or two afterward, walking one afternoon in a quiet back road, I startled a woodcock from directly beside the track. “Well, well,” said I, “here is the very place;” for I noticed not far off a bit of alder swamp, with a wood behind it and an open field near by. All the conditions were right, and on the first available evening, with something like assurance, I made my way thither. Yes, the bird was there, in the full ecstasy of his wonderful performance--for wonderful it surely is. My friend was not with me, however, and for one reason or another, now past recall, another year went by without our being able to visit the spot together at the necessary minute. Then a day came. He heard the bird (well I remember the hour), was delighted beyond measure, and that very evening, still under the spell of the “miracle,” put his impressions of it on paper. The next day they were printed, and I remember still my pleasure when the most competent of all men to speak of such a matter sent me word that it was the best description of the performance that he had ever seen. If any of my readers desire to see it, it is to be found in a little volume of most delightful outdoor essays entitled “The Listener in the Country.” All this I lived over again last evening as I went, alone, to the same spot--not having visited it on this errand for several years--to see whether the bird would still be true to his old tryst. I believed that he would be, in spite of the skepticism of a wide-awake man who lives almost within stone’s throw of the place; for though woodcock are said to be growing less and less common, I have strong faith in the conservative disposition of all such creatures. Once they have a place to their mind, they are likely to hold it. Fox sparrows were singing in their best manner as I passed on my way, and I would gladly have stayed to listen; their season, also, is a short one; but I kept to my point.