WOODCOCK. 293 
to her. His friend had observed the same proceeding 
on several occasions. 
Space will not admit of my referring at any great 
length to that much vexed question, the possibility of 
accurately determining the sexes of woodcocks through 
size and plumage, but Mr. Gould, who has had unusual 
opportunities for investigating this point, and has 
dissected, measured, and weighed, several hundred 
specimens, asserts in his work on “The Birds of Great 
Britain,” that at the end of a day’s shooting, he is 
still unable to say with certainty, from external features 
only, which are males and which females. This he 
attributes to the fact of there being two distinct races— 
large and small (as occurs in many other birds) though 
not admitting of specific rank, and adds, “ during their 
vernal migration these races generally keep separate 
from each other, and some flights will be composed of 
a small red race, while others will be exclusively large 
dark grey birds.” As with the common snipe, “the 
male is undoubtedly the larger bird”’; such he believes 
to be the case with the woodcock, “if there be any 
difference between the sexes,” but on dissection he 
has proved “ that many of the long-billed birds are 
females.” As to the outer primary of the wing forming 
a sexual distinction as supposed by some sportsmen,— 
the males being said to have the external margin of that 
feather plain or devoid of tooth-like markings, whilst the 
same feather in females exhibits such markings, Mr. 
Gould thus disposes of that theory from his own experi- 
ence. ‘They [the tooth-like markings] are absent in 
both sexes of very old birds ; for I have wings of females 
in my collection in which the outer margin of the first 
primary is totally devoid of the toothed character. 
When the young woodcock assumes his first primaries, 
which he does at the age of two or three weeks, the 
outer feather is strongly marked; as he grows older 
