WOODCOCK. 287 



cocks' nests discovered many years ago, it seems 

 probable that if in those days as much attention had 

 been devoted to the habits of birds, as at the present 

 time, still more instances would have been forthcoming. 

 Mr. Lubbock speaks of a nest discovered in 1827, " in 

 a wet low carr in the parish of Hickling. The old bird 

 was killed by a stoat, on her nest, and the eggs sucked," 

 but, he adds, "her wings, however, which were shown 

 by the person who discovered the nest, prevented the 

 possibility of mistake as to the species." The same 

 author also states (1845) "that three young woodcocks 

 were taken in Brooke wood a few years back." In 1848 

 Mr. Alfred Newton recorded in the "Zoologist" (p. 

 2148) the finding of a nest with four eggs, at Riddles- 

 worth, near Harling, by a man cutting reeds, about the 

 middle of April, and the eggs when blown appeared to 

 have been set upon about a week. In the same year, also, 

 according to Messrs. Gurney and Fisher (" Zoologist," 

 p. 2185) another nest containing four young was found 

 at Eainham, near Fakenham, on the 2nd of May ; and 

 Mr. Southwell informs me that he has eggs in his collec- 

 tion from the neighbourhood of Holt. A pair of old 

 birds with nestlings, in Mr. Gurney's possession, were 



p. 349), from his own observations on the breeding of the woodcock 

 in the forests of Norway, says, " in these it chooses those places 

 for its nest from which the trees have been cut down, on the out- 

 skirts of the forest, and bordering upon the cultivated districts 

 and the banks of the rivers. Whilst there we had the pleasure of 

 taking its eggs, which were placed upon the bare ground, under 

 some brushwood, and in a place from which the timber had been 

 cleared, and in which the young spruce fir-trees were again springing" 

 From this we may presume that our young fir-coverts are far more 

 suited to their breeding habits than were the old oak-woods and 

 hazel-copses of which so few now remain, having been stubbed up 

 and cultivated or entirely replanted. These, however, from their 

 dense undergrowth and leafy shelter, had peculiar attractions for 

 them in autumn and winter. 



