220 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



When arriving in a heavy gale, they are generally in an 

 exhausted state, and hide themselves in most unlikely holes 

 and corners, to obtain shelter. For example, I well remem- 

 ber being told by the late Mr. Tayler, the eminent surgeon 

 at Brighton, that, on coming out of a house on the Marine 

 Parade, he saw something dash under the apron of his car- 

 riage as it stood at the door, which proved to be a Wood- 

 cock. They appear to breed in the county much more 

 commonly than formerly, when to have found a nest at all 

 was thought worthy of notice. They breed very early, nest- 

 ing in March, and by the end of May the young are fully 

 fledged. As the covers are rarely disturbed in the early 

 spring, except for marking timber or cutting hop-poles, they 

 may breed more numerously than is generally supposed. 

 " Mr. T. Monk, of Lewes, some years since, was at consider- 

 able pains to obtain statistics as to the number of Woodcocks 

 remaining to breed in the eastern division of Sussex ; and, 

 extraordinary -as it may appear, the conclusion he arrived at 

 was to the effect that in seven districts of East Sussex, com- 

 prising twenty-one parishes, there were annually on an aver- 

 age from one hundred and fifty to two hundred nests of this 

 bird.'^ (Zoologist, p. 434, 1879.) 



That the young are carried by the parents from place to 

 place has been now indisputably proved, and one manner in 

 which they are conveyed is admirably depicted in the frontis- 

 piece to the volume I have quoted. I have not myself seen 

 many nests. The first was in a wood in the parish of Wood- 

 mancote, in March 1851, and another I saw in Eridge 

 Park, in March 1852, and two more in St. Leonards Forest. 

 I have received the eggs from Petworth, Arundel, and Tun- 

 bridge Wells, and have been informed that in the latter neigh- 

 bourhood the eggs have often been found. Mr. Booth, in his 

 ' Rough Notes,"" states that in his bird-nesting days he had 

 frequently met with them about Catsfield and Ashburnham. 



