WOODCOCK. 285 
In 1858 the numbers that visited us were easily 
accounted for by the severe and lasting frosts which 
immediately succeeded their arrival. Snipes were plen- 
tiful at the same time, and the quantities of siskins, 
redpoles, and twites indicated a more than usual amount 
of cold in more northern countries. At this time, in the 
same wood at Swanton, where so many were shot in 
1852, eighty-three woodcocks were killed in one day 
in the second week of November. In the autumn and 
winter of 1864, the weather being somewhat severe, 
a very large number appeared on our coast, and at 
least one hundred couples, as I was informed at the 
time, were then killed in the coverts at Melton and 
Swanton. Mr. T. E. Gunn also states in the “ Zoolo- 
gist” for 1865 (p. 9468), that during the previous 
autumn scarcely a week passed that he did not see 
a dozen woodcocks hanging for sale in the Norwich 
Market, and that he heard of sixty-one having been 
killed about the last week in November, in a single 
wood at Gressenhall. Again in the years 1865, 1866, 
and 1867, very considerable flights reached us late in 
the autumn. In the former year, though rather a mild 
season, about one hundred and fifty-five were said 
to have been killed at Swanton and Melton im four 
days’ shooting ; sixty-seven in one day, and fifty-seven 
from Swanton wood alone.* In 1867, in the same 
woods, fifty-one were shot in one week in November, 
just prior to the commencement of very severe frosts. 
The return of the woodcocks in the spring of the 
year, which usually occurs in March, is, comparatively 
speaking, but little noticed. The shooting season being 
* See “ Field,” January 6th, 1866. 
+ “The nearest approach I ever saw,” writes Mr. Lubbock, 
“to the migration of this bird from England, was on the 10th of 
March, 1824: a pair of woodcocks passed across the road near 
Caistor, within a few yards of me, flying one behind another 
directly for the beach, which was within a quarter of a mile.” 
