The Scottish Naturalist. 305 



flocks on the banks a good deal lower down, and is to be found 

 breeding on Tent's Miiir pretty plentifully. It is somewhat 

 curious that there is no notice of their doing so higher up in the 

 district, where they might be expected, nor of their having ever 

 been met with in the Highlands, or anywhere further up the 

 river than that mentioned by Mr Marshall, of Stanley, who 

 records one shot near the Stormontfield ponds,^ four or five 

 miles above Perth. 



104. ScoLOPAX RUSTicoLA, Linn. (Woodcock.) 



There seems to be a belief among sportsmen in some quarters 

 that the Woodcock has of late years greatly changed its habits, 

 breeding and remaining all summer, and leaving this country in 

 autumn, instead of coming to us only at that season and in the 

 numbers it formerly did. This latter may be quite true of many 

 parts of the country, but it must be recollected, as before stated, 

 that none of our Grallatores are as abundant as in years past ; 

 besides which, much depends on the state of wind and weather as 

 to whether birds on their passage from the Continent remain or 

 proceed further on, — wild weather at that time, especially if ac- 

 companied with fog and adverse winds, throws them on our east 

 coast. Should the contrary take place, few or none will be seen 

 there, as they will then all have passed on to the west. That 

 any change has taken place in their habits will be found, I think, 

 to be a mistake. It is perhaps not generally known, excepting 

 to those who have paid attention to the subject, that the Wood- 

 cock breeding in this country is no new thing ; it has done so 

 for years in every quarter of the country, from the south of Eng- 

 land to the north of Scotland, but of course in very much fewer 

 numbers than they do at present — and the reason is very simple : 

 they were not protected then ; they are now. Twenty years ago, 

 and less, the Woodcock was shot sometimes in large numbers 

 in March and April, and I have known a party of several guns 

 turn out for the purpose as late as the 13th of April. Conse- 

 quently all the breeding birds were destroyed. On this very 

 subject Mr Gould, writing in his work on 'British Birds' some 

 years ago, says : " Are we not killing the goose that lays the 

 golden Qgg, when every scamp who can borrow a gun is per- 

 mitted to shoot these birds in their evening flights or roadings 

 during the months of March and April? I sincerely trust that, 

 if this bird be not hereafter reckoned among the species desig- 



1 'Scot. Nat.,' V. p. 257. 

 U 



