HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS. 
WOODCOCK. 
Scolopax rusticola, PENNANT, MOontTacu. 
Scolopax—A Woodcock. Rusticola, Rus—The country. 
Colo-—To inhabit. 
In Europe, the Woodcock retires into the wild districts of 
Norway, Lapland, and Sweden to build, also frequents Finland, 
Russia, and Silesia; in Switzerland, Germany, and France, it 
is less common; in Italy it is plentiful in winter: it occurs 
throughout the whole of the more temperate parts of the 
continent in greater or less numbers. In Asia it appertains 
to Persia, India, and Japan. In Africa to Barbary aad other 
parts, and in Madeira is a perennial resident. 
In this country these birds were formerly muck more 
abundant than they are now, and numbers used to be taken 
in springes, nets, and traps. The destruction of their eggs 
in Sweden, where they, as likewise the birds themselves, are 
in much request, may perhaps account for this, as well as 
possibly for the circumstance of their building so much more 
frequently with us than formerly, as presently adverted to, 
though their actual numbers are diminished. 
In Orkney and Shetland they occur on their way north and 
south. 
The Woodcock arrives early in the neighbourhood of 
Brighton, at first in flocks of from ten to thirty, and after- 
wards in larger numbers, and are for a short time found, as 
I am informed by Mr. Thomas Thorncroft, of that place, in 
B 
VoL. VI. 
