WOODCOCK. 9 



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 feed- 

 ing grounds. The soil where the nests were found' is 

 gravelly and rather dry ; the grass tolerably long, with- 

 out underwood ; and the trees, oak, birch, and larch, not 

 exceeding 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 Woodcock 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: " Ornitho- 

 logists 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 entirely a voluntary one. This spring, how- 

 ever, the nests of three pairs were found in one wood, be- 

 longing to Francis Hurt, Esq., of Alderwasley, near Derby. 

 The nests when discovered all contained eggs, the old 

 birds being then sitting. 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 been hatched even at 

 that early period of the year. Two of the young broods, 



