io4 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



Family- SCOL OP A CID/E. 



WOODCOCK. 



Scolopax rusticula, LlNN. 



AVKRY well-known bird, of wide range, which, for some reason or .other, is 

 less of a pure migrant, and more of a resident in our country than it used 

 to be, breeding, in greater or less numbers, wherever there are thick undisturbed 

 woods, with damp rushy feeding grounds adjacent. This last appears to be a sine- 

 qud-non, and will explain why Woodcocks do not breed in certain apparently 

 suitable localities. The bulk nest in Northern Europe Scandinavia, Germany, 

 Finland, and Russia -and no doubt across Asia to Mantchuria. But their numbers 

 will probably be found to decrease eastward ; I infer this from their small numbers 

 on migration on the eastern coasts of Asia. They have been found breeding in 

 Italy, Austria, the Canaries and Azores, the Himalayas and Japan. In winter 

 they are found all over Southern Europe in suitable localities (enormous numbers 

 used to be shot in Albania, when we held the Ionian Islands, but their numbers 

 there now are not what they used to be). They occur in more or less abundance 

 also in Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and India. As has been stated, they are not 

 abundant in China. In America some few examples (probably of European origin) 

 have occurred ; in the Faeroes one, in Iceland and Greenland none. 



Description of the adult; bill long (about three inches), tapering, light brown, 

 darker at the' tip; eye very large (indicating a habit of feeding at night), and 

 very far back in the head ; iris dark brown ; the plumage of the head and upper 

 parts a delicate mixture of " wood-brown," " burnt umber," and " hair-brown," (I 

 take these exact tints from Ridgway's " Nomenclature of Colours," a book which 

 ought to be better known), and black, disposed in exquisite mottlings ; a dark 

 brown line from bill to eye ; primaries dark brown, with chestnut saw-tooth 

 markings on the outer web, except on the first primary, which has a narrow cream- 

 white outer margin instead ; tail feathers black, narrowly barred with chestnut, 

 and with broad ash-grey tips which are white underneath ; under parts fawn-brown, 

 finely barred with darker brown; feet and legs yellow-brown. Length 13^-14^ 

 inches, wing 7^-8^. English bred birds are thought to be smaller, as a rule, and 

 redder above than foreign migrants, and more mottled with black on the back. 

 Females resemble the males exactly. 



