WADING BIRDS. 195! 
various parts of the country have been noted, especially 
of late years, more attention having been paid to the 
subject. In our own forest district, however, they have 
become constant denizens throughout the year, breeding 
regularly in our woods in great numbers. I have no 
doubt that these are regularly augmented and diminished 
by a partial migration from and to the Continent in 
October and March, but still a very large number take 
up their permanent residence with us, and may be con- 
stantly met with during the summer. Ollerton Corner, 
and Blyth Corner Woods abound with them to such an 
extent that, while walking along the side of the former 
wood on a summer’s evening for the distance of a mile, 
I have counted at least from twenty to thirty woodcocks 
flying from the wood to the forest, and this I could do 
any evening during twilight. In these woods they breed 
abundantly, their nests being loosely formed of dry 
leaves and fern, with sometimes a little grass, and placed 
in a warm sheltered situation. The eggs are always 
four in number, the young being hatched about the last 
week in April or the first in May, and being able to run 
as soon as they leave the egg. 
The female shows the greatest affection for her pro- 
geny when very young, hissing in a menacing manner 
on the approach of an enemy, and when compelled to 
retreat taking one under her wing, and sometimes one 
under each wing, and conveying them away to a place 
of safety. 
In 1846 a woodman was engaged with some others in 
clearing the underwood from a plantation in Thoresby 
Park. He had just cut down a small thornbush with’ 
his billhook, when directly it fell, a woodcock started 
up from the fern at its foot, where she had been brooding 
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