BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 
are in some years considerable, and if a 
stricter watch were kept on unlicensed 
gunners along the foreshore of East Anglia, 
very much larger numbers would find their 
way westwards instead of to Leadenhall. As it 
is, the wanderers arrive, not necessarily, as has 
been freely asserted, in poor condition, but 
always tired out by their journey, and 
numbers are secured before they have time 
to recover their strength. Yet those which do 
recover fly right across England, some con- 
tinuing the journey to Ireland, and stragglers 
even, with help no doubt from easterly gales, 
having been known to reach America. 
The woodcock is interesting as a parent 
because it is one of the very few birds that 
carry their young from place to place, and 
the only British bird that transports them 
clasped between her legs. A few others, like 
the swans and grebes, bear the young ones on 
the back, but the woodcock's method is 
unique. Scopoli first drew attention to his own 
version of the habit in the words " pullos 
rostro portat," and it was old Gilbert White 
who, with his usual eye to the practical, 
doubted whether so long and slender a bill 
24 
