WOODCOCK. 295 
ounces.* Monster woodcocks, however, of even greater 
weight than sixteen ounces have been recorded at 
various times, and amongst others Yarrell mentions a 
truly gigantic bird said to have been killed about the 
year 1775, in the long plantation at Narborough in 
this county. The particulars respecting it, supplied to 
him for publication by the then Lord Braybrooke, are 
contained in a letter from Lady Peyton to Miss Hoste 
in 1801. Having described its being shot during a deep 
snow, whilst perched on a very low branch of a spruce 
fir, weighed down to the ground, her ladyship remarks, 
“TI saw it weighed both in scales and steelyards, as did 
Sir Henry and a carpenter at work from Swaffham, and 
wonderful as the weight may appear it was exactly 
twenty-seven ounces. I believe it was about 1775 or 
1776. Some years before that a woodcock was killed 
at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, which weighed twenty-four 
ounces.” Lord Braybrooke also referring to another 
large bird observed in this county, says, “the Earl of 
Leicester told me that he, in company with Mr. Ralf 
Dutton, when they were young men, followed a gigantic 
looking woodcock for some hours, near Holkham, but 
could not get at him.” In the two first instanees the 
weight is so extraordinary that in spite of the apparent 
authentication, one cannot help suspecting some error 
or deception in both cases. 
Pied and other varieties are occasionally, but not 
often, met with, and are, therefore, eagerly sought 
after when once seen. The most beautiful specimen 
I ever saw was killed at Hanworth, near Aylsham, 
on the 6th of November, 1856. Like one described 
* Sir Thomas Browne (Wilkin’s edition, vol. iv., p. 380) has 
the following memorandum in his ‘Common Place Book :” “A 
woodcock in the total, weighed twelve ounces, and the feathers 
weighed three-quarters of an ounce.” 
