288 BIHDS OF NOErOLK. 



taken some years since at Stratton Strawless;"^ and in 

 Lord Hastings's collection is a case containing a pair of 

 old birds and tliree young ones, which were hatched at 

 Melton Constable, but the exact date is not known. Mr. 

 Lambert, gamekeeper on the Kimberley estate, assures 

 me that at least forty years ago he knew of a wood- 

 cock's nest in the woods at Blickling ; another was seen 

 about three years back at Hempstead, by Mr. Thomas 

 Edwards ; and some twenty years since, as I learn from 

 Mr. Southwell, the shells of woodcocks' eggs, in a nest 

 which the young had just left, were found at Bawsey, 

 by Mr. Burlingham, of Lynn. At Fakenham Wood, in ' 

 Suffolk, but not very far from the border, Mr. A. l!^ewton 

 has heard of woodcocks breeding more than once, though 

 some twenty years ago. From Culford he has also a 

 nest with a rotten egg, taken after the others had 

 hatched, iu 1867. The nest is a deep cup of dry oak 

 and Spanish chestnut leaves. 



Of more recent date the following are all that have 

 eome under my own notice, but I doubt not that further 

 .enquiries would elicit even more instances : — 



On the 2nd of May, 1851, a pair of young birds 

 about three weeks old were sent up to Norwich for 

 preservation, taken at Holkham; and a third nestling 

 was kept alive for several weeks, but from want of 

 caution in feeding itself was choked, as supposed, by 

 the ''diet" of worms. About the same time a game- 

 keeper at Brooke, flushed an old woodcock and four 

 young ones, and succeeded in catching two of the latter. 

 On the 17 th of May also of that year, I saw a fine old 

 bird, quite fresh, hanging up for sale in our fishmarket. 



* Morris in his " British Birds " (vol. iv., p. 254) states that a 

 woodcock was shot at Mr. Marsham's, of Stratton Strawless, in 

 Norfolk, about the 7th of June, 1847. The same fact is also 

 recorded in the " Zoologist " for that year (p. 1876) by the Eev. 

 H. T. Frere. 



