And after all, I arrived a few minutes ahead of time. Up and down the road I paced (no one in sight, nor any danger of any one), with an ear always awake for a certain note, the “bleat,” so called, of the woodcock. Should I hear it? It was fast getting dark, the western sky covered with black clouds (a great disadvantage), with only scattered gleams of bright color, very narrow, just on the horizon. Hark! Yes; that was it--_Spneak_. There is no putting the sound into letters, but those who know the call of the nighthawk may understand sufficiently well what I am trying to express, for the two notes are almost identical. With this note, single, repeated for a considerable time at intervals of perhaps half a minute,--the bird still on the ground, and turning about, so that some of his utterances sound three or four times as far away as others,--with this strange, unmusical, almost ridiculous overture the woodcock invariably introduces his evening recital. I wait, therefore, leaning against the heavy stone wall, costly and unromantic, with which the rich new owner of the land has lately fenced his possession, till all at once the silence is broken by the familiar whistling noises made by the heavy bird as he leaves the ground. This time they are unusually faint, and are lost almost immediately. Only for my acquaintance with the matter I should assume that the bird had flown away, and that my evening was lost. As it is, I continue to listen. Once and again I catch the sounds. The fellow is still rising. I can see him, but only in my mind’s eye. Those black clouds hide him quite as effectually as if he were behind them. Still I can see him. I know he has gone up in a broad spiral--up, up, up, as on a winding staircase. Now, after silence, begins a different sound, more musical, more clearly vocal; breathless, broken, eager, passionate, ecstatic. And now, far aloft in the sky, where the clouds are of a lighter color, I suddenly catch sight of the bird, a dark speck, shooting this way and that, descending in sharp zigzags, whistling with his last gasps. And now, as if exhausted,--and well he may be,--he drops to earth (I see him come down) very near me, much nearer than I had thought. _Spneak_, he calls. I know exactly what is coming. At intervals, just as before, he repeats the sound, till suddenly he is on the wing again, whistling as he goes. He flies straight from me,--for this time, by good luck, I see him as he starts,--and mounts and mounts. Then, far, far up, he whistles, _zip, zip_, and then, when he can stay no longer, comes down in crazy zigzags.