816 MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 



time of their arrival ; and it is probable that this should be 

 the case, as they come hither in quest of food, which fails 

 them in the places they leave. If the wind has favoured 

 their flight, their stay on the coast where they drop is very 

 short, if any ; but if they have been forced to struggle with 

 an adverse gale, such as a ship can hardly make any way 

 with, they rest a day or two to recover their fatigue ; so greatly 

 has their strength been exhausted in some instances, that they 

 have been taken by hand in Southwald streets. They do not 

 come in flocks, but separate and dispersed. "When the redwing 

 appears in autumn, on the Sufiblk coast, the woodcocks are 

 certainly at hand. Between the twelfth and twenty-fifth of 

 March they throng towards the coast to be ready for their 

 departure, the first law of nature bringing them in autumn, 

 the second carrying them from us in spring. 



From the observations of Mr. Selby, of Twizel House, 

 Northumberland, an accurate observer of nature, it appears 

 that woodcocks perform their migrations in calm as well as 

 blowing weather ; for he says : — " I have found that these 

 birds always come over in hazy weather, with little wind, 

 and that blowing from the north-east ; and it is probable 

 that they then find the upper region of the atmosphere, in 

 which they fly, freer from counter currents of air, than in 

 more open weather. After a night of this description, I have 

 frequently met with great numbers upon the edges of plan- 

 tations, in hedges, and even in turnip-fields, and enjoyed 

 excellent sport for the day ; but. on seeking the following 

 morning for a renewal of similar success, I have not found a 

 single bird, the whole flight having proceeded on their 

 course during the intervening night. It is during this time 

 that woodcocks, like most migratory birds, perform iheir 

 journeys ; and it seems probable that those which halt upon 

 the eastern coast of Scotland, and the northern counties of 



