COMMON WOODCOCK. 395 



appear that the Woodcock, habitually or occasionally, carries 

 its young from one place to another — some say with its bill, 

 others with its feet, the latter mode of conveyance more 

 numerously attested than the former ; but more observations 

 are necessary on this point. 



Woodcocks vary much in size and remarkably in weight, 

 from seven or eight, it is stated, to twenty or even more 

 ounces. As an article of food or of luxurious gastric indul- 

 gence, no bird is held in more estimation; and in this 

 respect it deserves all the encomiums bestowed upon it. Its 

 price is accordingly high, and poor people are neither per- 

 mitted to shoot nor can afford to eat Woodcocks, which are 

 quite aristocratic in their final tendencies. They afford 

 prime sport, too, to idle people, who expatiate with delight 

 upon the pleasures of " cock-shooting." It is very inte- 

 resting, it would appear, to be informed that the Earl of 

 Claremont shot fifty couple in one day, Captain Donnan 

 thirty, and a field-officer of the Tipperary Militia saw fifty 

 couple bagged by an acquaintance. This happened in Ire- 

 land, where, if shooting Woodcocks would prevent people 

 from shooting each other, it would be politic and humane to 

 give " the finest peasantry " in the world the free range of 

 the bogs and thickets, and set the gentry to dig potatoes or 

 preach popery out of the island. 



The Woodcock is, properly, a regular winter resident in 

 Great Britain and Ireland ; and it does not appear that the 

 number of those which make their abode there in summer 

 and breed, bears any considerable proportion to that of the 

 individuals which leave us in spring for the northern parts 

 of Europe. They depart in March, and in the end of that 

 month or the beginning of the next arrive in Scandinavia, 

 some of them proceeding to the extreme north. They are 

 also said to breed in Russia and Siberia ; some in various 

 more southern countries. Their southern migration extends 

 to Egypt and Cashmere. They are also stated to inhabit 

 various parts of India. This species has not hitherto been 

 observed anywhere in America ; but in the northern parts of 

 that continent a smaller Woodcock occurs, to which, on 

 account of its shorter rounded wings and some other pecu- 



