2QO THE NATURAL HISTORY 



divided attention to the birds, we had imagined it to 

 be still some yards further on, when our unlucky 

 ducking startlingly undeceived us. 



The Common Snipe (Scolopax gallinago) not only 

 affords us a frequent delicacy in winter, but often 

 supplies us with its large richly blotched pyriform 

 eggs. Its nest is found in the little islets of coarse 

 grass in the Brick-kiln Copse, among the rank herb- 

 age on West Heath and near the Blackrye Pond. 

 The pretty little Jack Snipe (Scolopax gallinuld) is 

 also a frequenter of the same locality, but does not 

 breed there. It is not nearly so numerous as the com- 

 mon species, but to an indifferent shot it is infinitely f 

 more interesting. Its flight is so short that it may be 

 flushed, shot at, and . . . missed, many times in the 

 course of a few hours, and in this way it is said to 

 have tested the skill of many an incipient sportsman 

 for a whole day, and escaped at last ! The Woodcock 

 (Rusticola sylvestris) visits us about the beginning of 

 October, but not in great numbers. It is flushed in 

 some of the Uphill and Downhill covers throughout 

 the winter months, and sometimes later, an occasional 

 pair even remaining to breed with us. We have met 

 with three or four of its nests here ; and in the year 

 1822, a beautiful pied specimen, now in a glass case, 

 was shot in the parish. We are indebted to this bird 

 for an opportunity of recording an incident illustrative 

 of the observant character of the "tender thought," 

 before the young idea has been taught " how to shoot," 

 and we may add that it was duly appreciated by those 

 who were present at the time and place of its oc- 

 currence. Among the technicalities of Battue shooting, 

 it is well known to the initiated, that the lads who are 

 stationed at various points on the outskirts of a cover, 

 for the purpose of preventing the birds rising at in- 

 convenient distances from the guns, are called " stops." 

 On one occasion several years since, when a party were 

 shooting in the Brick-kiln Copse, a woodcock was 



