590 SCOLOPACID.E, 



present season. In two small woods near liis house he this 

 year discovered four Woodcocks'* nests, one having four, and 

 the others three eggs each, all of which were hatched and 

 ran. The young birds he repeatedly saw before they took 

 wing ; and now five or six couple may every evening, towards 

 dusk, be observed flying about the lodge as they pass to their 

 feeding grounds. The soil where the nests were found is 

 gravelly and rather dry ; the grass tolerably long, without 

 underwood ; and the trees, oak, birch, and larch, not exceed- 

 ing thirty years growth. The situation is warm, and not one 

 hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea ; it is not 

 far distant from the river. The woods are kept quiet, and 

 several pheasants' nests were hatched in their close vicinity. 

 It is probable that the parent birds sought this spot for the 

 purpose of breeding, as they must have arrived in the spring 

 from other localities ; for those who shot in the covers till 

 February declare that they did not know of a single Wood- 

 cock being then left in them, and had there been two or 

 three, the keeper must have been aware of it. — Zool. Pro. 



Mr. W. C. Williamson, Curator to the Natural History 

 Society, Manchester, made the following communication to 

 Mr. Loudon for his Magazine in June 1836. Ornitholo- 

 gists have for some time been convinced of the fact that the 

 Woodcock occasionally breeds in England ; but the instances 

 have been rare, and, generally, a single pair of birds, without 

 others in the neighbourhood to evince that the stay was en- 

 tirely a voluntary one. This spring, however, the nests of 

 three pairs were found in one wood, belonging to Francis 

 Hurt, Esq. of Alderwasley, near Derby. The nests when 

 discovered all contained eggs, the old birds being then sit- 

 ting. I wrote to Mr. Hurt on the 29th of April, requesting 

 him to procure for our Society a nest with eggs ; and two or 

 three days after, he kindly sent me the nest, with broken 

 shells of four eggs, which, as well as those of other nests, had 



