326 scolopacidj:. 



but the absence of cover forms no insuperable bar, for Saxby 

 knew it to breed annually on the bill-side at Hermanness, 

 the most northern point of the most northern of the Shetland 

 Islands. In Ireland a similar increase has taken place since 

 Thompson in 1843 called attention to the nidification of this 

 bird from the year 1835 onwards in the woods of Tullamore 

 Park, county Down. Lord Clermont writes that at Eavens- 

 dale Park, on the borders of Louth and Armagh, and in the 

 neighbouring Narrow- water Woods, county Down, above 

 twenty nests are sometimes found in a season by the keepers 

 when looking for pheasants' eggs, and the birds are frequently 

 seen flying to and from their feeding-places. 



Woodcocks are very early breeders, and the date of March 

 1st, the commencement of close-time, is not at all too early 

 for their protection. St. John, in his 'Wild Sports in the 

 Highlands ' (p. 220), states that he had three eggs brought 

 to him on 9th March, 1846, and a nearly full-grown young 

 one in the second week of April, 1844. In 1836, Mr. 

 Blyth saw two young Woodcocks on the 20th of April. On 

 the 22nd of April, 1838, Mr. Gould exhibited at the Zoolo- 

 gical Society two young Woodcocks, apparently three weeks 

 old ; and the Author had in his collection a young Woodcock 

 five or six weeks old, which he bought on the 23rd of April, 

 1822, in the market at Orleans. The average time for the 

 commencement of incubation may, however, be taken as the 

 end of March and beginning of April. The nest is little 

 more than a hollow in the dry oak or fern leaves, in some 

 warm sheltered situation, but without any attempt at con- 

 cealment in the undergrowth, and the eggs, usually four in 

 number, are but slightly pyriform, of a pale yellowish -white : 

 the larger end blotched and spotted with ash-grey and two 

 shades of reddish-yellow brown ; they measure about 1*75 

 by 1-3 in. 



Few subjects have been more discussed than that of the 

 manner in which the Woodcock carries its young. Scopoli, 

 writing in 1769, says, " ;);^Z/rt<; rostra pnrtat fugieiis ah 

 haute,'" upon which Gilbert White remarks that "the long 

 unwieldy bill of the Woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted 



