WOODCOCK. 291 
previous summer, at Attlebridge, Mr. Micklethwait’s 
gamekeeper found five or six nests, and “this was 
not an exceptional case, as for several years past he 
had been aware that some were to be found, and even 
captured a young one.” 
On the 6th of May, 1867, a pair of woodcocks were 
seen in a low moist carr close to Hoveton Broad, but 
no nest was discovered ; and on the 17th of that month 
a nestling was sent up to Norwich to be stuffed, which, 
with three others, had been hatched on Mr. H. N. 
Burroughes’s estate at Burlingham. 
Last of all, to my knowledge, up to the present time, 
a nest with two eggs was found in a plantation at 
Bixley, near Norwich, about the 24th of April, 1868, 
and in this case, also, the bird allowed itself to be 
photographed on its nest* by Mr. John Gurney, of 
Earlham, and eventually brought off her young ones. 
From such repeated instances, then, of the breeding 
of the woodcock, there can be no question that were 
they protected in the early spring, the number that now 
remain with us throughout the summer would be greatly 
increased, and while the same birds would return again 
and againt to their accustomed haunts, as do other 
* The extreme tameness of the brooding woodcock is mentioned 
by Pennant, who states that “a person who discovered one on 
its nest, has often stood over and even stroked it: notwithstand- 
ing which it hatched the young, and in due time disappeared with 
them.” It seems, also, in former days to have ranked with the 
dotterel as a foolish bird, for in Willughby’s “ Ornithology” it is 
remarked, that “amongst us in England this bird is infamous 
for its simplicity or folly; so that a woodcock is proverbially used 
for a simple, foolish person.” 
* Of the attachment for, and return to, any particular spot 
evinced by the woodcock, two remarkable instances are given in 
Daniel’s “Rural Sports.” In 1798, a woodcock caught alive in 
arabbit net was turned loose with a brass ring on its left leg. 
This occurred in February, and in the following December the 
2P2 
