woodchuck

[Eng. wood; second element doubtful.] IMG:content-1002.png:[blocks in formation] was known in the middle of the eighteenth century; but White (lett. xxx i., to Pennant) rightly surmised that Scopoli erred in supposing that the young one was conveyed either by or in the bill. It is just as erroneous, however, to substitute the claws, as some have done, for the bill. When the parent bird wishes to convey her young one from a place of danger to one of safety, the tiny thing is gently pre ed between the feet and against the breast, burden has been hastily taken up. The American the aid of the bill only being resorted to when the Woodcock, Philohela minor , is a smaller bird, but resembles the European species in plumage and habit, and, like it, is esteemed for the table. 2. Zool .: A collector's name for some species of the genus Murex (q. v.), from the resemblance of the spines or the elongated tube to the bill of the Woodcock. Murex tenuis pin a is the Thorny Wood cock, and M. haustellum the Woodcock's (or Snipe's) Head. 3. Fig .: A simpleton; in allusion to the ease with which a woodcock allows itself to be taken in springes or nets set in the glades. "But if I knew when you come next a burding, I'le have a stronger noose to hold the woodcock ." Beaum. & Flet.: Scornful Lady, iv. Springes to catch woodcocks: Arts to entrap simplicity. ( Shakesp .: Hamlet , i. 3.) woodcock-eye, s. A name for a snaphook. woodcock-fish, s . Ichthyol.: Centriscus scolopax , the Trumpet-fish. Sir Thomas Browne ( of Fishes , .) calls it a Sea: woodcock. woodcock-owl, s. Ornithol.: Asio accipitrinus (†Otus brachyotus), the Short-eared Owl. "A large proportion of the examples seen in this country are winter visitors that come from the north of Europe in October, and have in consequence been called Wood cock - owls ." - Yarrell : Brit . Birds (ed. 4th), i. 163. woodcock-pilot, s. Ornithol.: Regulus cristatus . [GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.] "The migrating bodies are usually preceded by flocks of tiny goldcrests; and so invariable is this rule that the latter have come to be called ' woodcock - pilots ." - St. James's Gazette , Mar. 14, 1887. woodcock-shell, s. [WOODCOCK, 2.] *woodcock's head, s. A tobacco pipe, from the fact that the early English pipes were often made in that form. 2. An erection made of planks nailed together so as to form a sharp ridge, on which soldiers were set astride as a punishment, with muskets tied to their legs. The practice has long been discontinued. 3. A child's toy.