COMMON WOODCOCK. 393 



woods about the Barmkin of Edit and the Loch of Skene. 

 At night I have sometimes raised it on elevated moors. In 

 some seasons, however, it is more abundant than in others. 

 In the spring there seems an accession to their numbers, 

 and from April to the end of July they are to be seen every 

 night passing, sometimes in small parties of old and young, 

 over the tree tops in the woods they frequent. They fly 

 steadily and rapidly on such occasions, uttering a sound like 

 the word vessop, accompanied by several strange low croaks, 

 like those of a frog. I have seen some briskly pass me one 

 evening within a small space at the edge of a planting. In 

 these motions they seem to take regular rounds, passing the 

 same spots for many successive nights, as I have taken pains 

 to observe. They breed twice in the year : first, very early, 

 as I got remains of a young bird pretty far fledged in the 

 month of April. The only nest I ever got was in a thick 

 plantation, near the Loch of Skene, on July 1st, the bird 

 fluttering off at my feet as if wounded. There was merely a 

 cavity at the root of a tree, with a few rir leaves in a sort of 

 form. The four eggs I presented to you. In the bilberry 

 season the Woodcock resorts to the places where that fruit 

 grows, and eats great quantities of it. Its dung has then 

 the purple colour of that of all birds feeding on the same 

 berry. This species leaves our part of the country about the 

 month of August, few or none being found betwixt that and 

 the beginning of October." 



The eggs alluded to are broadly ovate, rather pointed, 

 not depressed at the broader end ; the largest an inch and 

 ten-twelfths in length, an inch and five-twelfths in breadth ; 

 the smallest an inch and nine-twelfths by an inch and four- 

 twelfths ; pale yellowish-grey, densely blotched and spotted 

 with umber-brown and purplish-grey at the larger end, 

 sparsely over the other parts, with some faint purplish-grey 

 markings. 



Mr. St. John's account of the Woodcock as observed in 

 Morayshire is less that of a mere sportsman than of a lover 

 of nature and an observer of the habits of birds. After 

 stating that a nest with three eggs was brought to him on 

 the 9th of March, 1846, and that in the second week of 



