SCOLOPACID^. 23-5 



Woodcock, Scolopax rusticola. Abundant in 

 many of the great woods of Sussex during the 

 winter. Breeds regularly in some parts of the 

 weald. At Hollycombe young woodcocks are 

 found every summer,* and Sir Charles Taylor has 

 shown me the female bird sitting on its eggs in a 

 plantation within a few minutes' walk of the 

 house. The nest is a mere hollow in the ground, 

 lined with a few dead leaves. I have also seen 

 another in the act of incubation, in an oak coppice 

 at Barkfold, near Kirdford. By cautiously creep- 

 ing towards the spot on my hands and knees, I 

 succeeded in approaching within a few yards, and 

 could see the full black eye of the bird apparently 

 fixed upon me. When at last sufficiently alarmed 

 to quit the nest, instead of flying away hurriedly, 

 she quietly slipped off it, and ran with an almost 

 noiseless pace for about twenty yards before she 

 took wing. The eggs, four in number, were sub- 

 sequently hatched. 



Great Snipe, Scolopax major. An occasional 

 straggler. Has been killed on Pevensey levels, 

 and one was shot in the month of October, a few 

 years ago, by Mr, Trist, a wine-merchant at 

 Brighton, on the Downs near the race-course, a 

 singular locality for this bird. 



. * Vide Jesse's " Gleanings in Natural History," 

 vol. ii., p. 184. 



