8 SCOLOPACIOE. 



April. On the 22nd of April, 1838, Mr. Gould exhibited 

 at the Zoological Society two young Woodcocks, appa- 

 rently three weeks old; and I have in my collection a 

 young Woodcock five or six weeks old, which I bought 

 on the 23rd of April, 1822, in the market at Orleans. 

 Scarcely a season passes that young Woodcocks are not 

 sent up to Leadenhall Market for sale, intended for the 

 table ; these, by my nots, have generally occurred in 

 May : the price about seven shillings each. In the fifth 

 Earl of Northumberland's household book, begun in 1512, 

 the price of a Woodcock is stated to be one penny or 

 three-halfpence ; and in the Norfolk household book, which 

 begins with 1519, and has been frequently quoted here, 

 the reward for four Woodcocks on the 18th of October, 

 fourpence ; and in another instance, paid for three Wood- 

 cocks, sixpence. 



In proof that the Woodcock breeds frequently in the 

 British Islands, particularly in Scotland, two or three of 

 the most interesting of the instances are thus recorded : 

 " At the Zoological Society, July 24th, 1832, a letter was 

 read, addressed by Sir F. Mackenzie to the Secretary of 

 the Society : it related to the breeding of some Woodcocks, 

 Scolopax rusticola, Linn., at Conan, on the eastern coast 

 of Ross-shire, the estate of that gentleman. For several 

 years past, two or three of these birds have occasionally 

 been seen in the woods, and about five years since a couple 

 were shot just before St. Swithin's day : these were, how- 

 ever, old birds, and from their being covered with fat, it 

 was evident that they had not nested. The keeper, in 

 fact, had never been able to find one of their nests or to 

 see a young bird, until the present season. In two small 

 woods near his house he this year discovered four Wood- 

 cocks' nests, one having four, and the others three eggs 

 each, all of which were hatched and ran. The young 



