274 OUTDOOR LIFE IN ENGLAND 



resting-places, and remain there for a few days to 

 recover themselves ; but having regained their 

 strength, they proceed onwards to those districts 

 which they find most suitable to their require- 

 ments. Hence it happens at times that a con- 

 siderable number of woodcocks may make their 

 appearance in a certain place, and a day or two 

 afterwards not one will be visible. Of course, 

 under such circumstances these newly-arrived 

 birds are, generally speaking, in but poor con- 

 dition after their long and toilsome flight. 



I have previously referred to my having flushed 

 a woodcock in the University Parks in Oxford. 

 Contrary to the general habit of woodcocks, this 

 individual bird did not shift its quarters, but 

 remained in the vicinity for some months, and 

 was afterwards seen on several occasions by the 

 park-keeper. I have from time to time, when 

 visiting Oxford since then, asked the keeper if 

 any further instances of woodcocks settling in the 

 same locality have been noticed by him, but none 

 have been observed. 



A Wiltshire friend of mine, who died some two 

 years ago at a very advanced age, told me that 

 when he was a young man, and before old Cran- 

 bourne Chase had been quite cleared away, he 

 fired his right barrel at a woodcock which he had 

 flushed, and at the report a stag jumped up out of 

 the fern close to him, and this he killed with his 

 left barrel a very unusual * right and left.' 



Dixon, in 'Our Rarer Birds,' thus describes the 



