WOODCOCK-SHOOTING. 817 



England, have completed their task from shore to shore, be- 

 tween sunset and sunrise, as thev appear but little fatigued 

 on their arrival, provided the weather has been calm. The 

 distance of the coasts of Norway and Sweden, from whence 

 these visitors are supposed to come, offers no objection to 

 this supposition, as a continued flight of eight or ten hours, 

 even at a rate inferior to what I conceive they are capable 

 of accomplishing, would suffice for the transit. Another argu- 

 ment for this supposition, is the high state of condition in 

 which the birds generally arrive on our shores, especially at 

 an advanced period of the season, by no means indicating 

 the wasting effects of very long-continued exertions. It ap- 

 pears that they fly at a considerable altitude, as, indeed, 

 most birds do when performing their migratory movements. 

 A respectable person who lived upon the coast, and who, 

 being a keen pursuer of wild-fowl, was in the habit of fre- 

 quenting the sea-shore at an early hour in the morning, 

 assured me that he had more than once noticed the arrival 

 of a flight of woodcocks coming from the north-east, just at 

 day-dawn. His notice was first attracted by a peculiar 

 sound in the air over his head, that, upon attending to he 

 found proceeded from birds descending in a direction almost 

 perpendicular, and which, upon approaching the shore, sepa- 

 rated and flew towards the interior ; these he pursued and 

 shot, and they proved, as he surmised by the view he had 

 of them as they flow past him, to be woodcocks." Mr. Selby 

 also noticed that " the flights of these birds, which seldom 

 remain longer than a few days, and then pass southward, 

 consist chiefly of females ; whilst, on the contrary, the sub- 

 sequent and latest flights which continue with us, are prin- 

 cipally composed of males. It has been noticed by several 

 authors, that tlie arrival of the males, in a number of our 

 summer visitants, precedes that of the females by many 



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