2 SCOLOPACID^. 



at dusk and early in the morning, especially during breeding-time, the male per- 

 sistently follows certain tracks along glades in woods — often called ' cock-roads ' 

 — uttering a deep as well as a whistling note ; similar routes are also traversed by 

 both sexes on their way to and from their feeding-grounds." 



Mr. H. Seebohm gives the follomng amusing account of his visit to a 

 Woodcock's nest * : — " On the 18th of April, 1870, I went over from Sheffield to 

 Edwinstowe, having received information from a gamekeeper that a Woodcock 

 was sitting on four eggs in one of the Welbeck woods. I left the little inn at 

 ten o'clock on a brilliant moonlight night, in the company of a woodman who had 

 discovered the nest about a fortnight previously. The night was Avarm and still, 

 and we did not meet a soul during our five miles walk through the forest, and 

 scarcely heard a sound, except the occasional cry of a cock Pheasant awakened by 

 our footsteps. Arrived at the spot the woodman pointed out a clump of last 

 year's bracken, under the spreading boughs of one of the old oak trees with which 

 the forest abounds, and in the midst of a number of birch trees which the 

 woodmen were engaged in felling. In the midst of this the nest was placed, on 

 the ground, and was little more than a hollow scratched in the earth, and lined 

 with a few leaves and a little dry grass. The bird did not leave her nest until I 

 was within a few feet of her. After watching her disappear under the branches, 

 I bent aside the bracken and looked at the four eggs. As I had never taken 

 Woodcocks' eggs before, I said to the woodman that I should like to carry them 

 away ; he replied that the gamekeeper knew of his having found the nest, and 

 that if the eggs were taken he w^ould probably lose his situation. The sight of a 

 half-sovereign, however, developed his imaginative faculties, and he suggested that 

 I should be satisfied with three of the eggs, and that fragments of the shell of the 

 fourth should be scattered close to the nest, to convince the gamekeeper that the 

 eggs had hatched out. This was accordingly done, and the three eggs were 

 brought home to the inn in triumph. On my congratulating him upon the 

 cleverness with which the theft had been made, he replied, ' O yes. Sir ; I would 

 not have taken you if I had not known that we could have done it innocent.' " 



Mr. John J. Dalgleish supplied the following interesting notes on the habits 

 of this species to Mr. H. E. Dresser, who published them in his ' Birds of 

 Europe ' f : — " My knowledge of the habits of the Woodcock extends principally 

 to the central district of Scotland north of the Firth of Forth and to the western 

 coast of Argyllshire. In the fcn-mer, through the counties of Stuiiug, Clack- 



* ' History of British Birds,' vol. iii. pp. 234, 235. 

 t Vol. vii. pp. 625, 626. 



