the Woodcock in Ireland. 339 



at the opposite extremity of Ireland from that of Kerry, a pair 

 of these birds bred at Claggan, the property of Earl O'Neil 

 in 1834. My informant, the gamekeeper, states that in the 

 month of April in that year, a nest was found containing four 

 eggs, all of which were successfully incubated ; it was placed 

 in a slight depression of the ground under a hazel, and had a 

 little grass and moss in the bottom for the reception of the 

 eggs : the bird was very tame when on the nest, and permitted 

 the approach of my informant within a yard of her*. This 

 same year (1834), I saw a young woodcock in the shop of Mr. 

 Glennon, bird preserver, &c. Dublin, who "set it up"; he 

 informed me that it was shot at Wilton in the county of Wex- 

 ford, and was received by him in a recent state on the 8th or 

 9th of May : he at the same time stated, that in the preceding 

 summer of 1833, a young bird of this species, shot in company 

 with one of its parents at the seat of Lord de Vesci in Queen's 

 county, was sent him to be preserved, and was likewise for- 

 warded when recent. By Thomas Walker, Esq. of Belmont, 

 near Wexford, I have been favoured with the following par- 

 ticulars under date of May 19, 1837. " As to the breeding of 

 woodcocks in this country, I was in the second week of May 

 sent a couple of young ones half-fledged f, that were taken out 

 of a nest at Wilton in this county, the seat of Mr. Alcock. 

 The nest was on the ground among brushwood, and the cry 

 of the young birds like the sound produced by a child's 

 whistle. At the time I received the young birds, there was at 

 Ballyarthur, county of Wicklow, the seat of Mr. Bailey, a nest 

 with four eggs in it ; this is the third year they have bred at 

 Wilton." Mr. Walker on another occasion mentioned the 

 woodcock as frequenting for a similar purpose the covers of 

 Killoughrim Wood in the county of Wexford, and remarked 

 upon the young indigenous specimens he had examined, that 

 " although fully as large as old birds, they had not got the 

 strong feathers in the tail, but instead a soft curly down." In 



hardly be presumed in every instance to have been solitary individuals, 

 though their mates may have escaped notice. 



* The tameness of the woodcock in its nest is mentioned by Pennant and 

 Latham, and from the observation of many persons who have witnessed it, 

 seems to be universal. 



t For one of these I am indebted to Mr. Walker. 



