Marking of Woodcock in Northumberland 247 



admitted that it is not very easy to distinguish a foreign- 

 bred woodcock from one that is hatched in these islands, 

 nor is it at all easy to state the age of any woodcock. 

 Moreover, the experiments at Alnwick go to show that 

 some, at least, of the woodcock bred there do go a long 

 distance from their home, although it seems more than 

 probable that many of them return in after years to their 

 original home. Many of the birds bred at Alnwick have 

 been killed there some years after they were marked, but 

 that must not be taken as conclusive evidence that they 

 have never been far away. It may be conceded, perhaps, 

 that when a woodcock is killed at home in the same year 

 that it was bred, or even at any time during the following 

 shooting season, it has never been far away, but even here 

 we are jumping to a conclusion without being able to 

 substantiate it. 



By way of illustrating the fact that many home-bred 

 woodcock do travel very far from home, and that a certain 

 proportion of them do actually cross the sea at some time 

 or other, it may be as well to instance some of the cases 

 that have cropped up in the course of the Alnwick experi- 

 ments, which have now extended over a period of twenty 

 seasons. We will take first those that were killed in the 

 shooting season following their being marked — that is, 

 within a year of hatching. The first example of this 

 occurred in December, 1897, when a bird of the year was 

 killed in Co. Wexford, Ireland. In the year follow- 

 ing a bird of that season's hatching was secured ir Co. 

 Cork, and further instances, no doubt, have occurred, 

 though they have not been reported up to the present. 



Several woodcock from Alnwick have been killed in 

 Ireland some time after their first season, as the following 

 instances will show : One marked in 1902 was shot on 

 the Dunmanay Mountains, Co. Cork, in March, 1903, ; 

 another, marked in 1903, was killed on the Castle Towns- 

 hend estate, in the same county, on January 8, 1907 ; and 

 another, marked in 1905, was secured at Carass, Croom, 

 Co. Limerick, on November 21, 1906. The best illustra- 

 tion of all, however, is supplied by the bird killed in 

 Brittany, in the Commune of Glomel, near Rostrenen, 



