HABITS OF WOODCOCK. 223 



peculiar call of the nesting season in a wood hard 

 by, and in which they were known to breed yearly. 



Cock and Snipe maybe as fairly called "wildfowl" 

 as can Duck ; in fact, all migratory birds are more 

 or less wildfowl for that matter, the only difference 

 being that some are land and others water fowl. 

 But, fortunately for them, they are not all like 

 Duck, Snipe, and Cock, excellent as food. 



Woodcock nest yearly in many parts of Ireland. 

 I never saw a Woodcock's nest with more than four 

 eggs, and I think this is the invariable number, as it 

 is with Snipe. Mr. W. Bagwell, of Clonmel, tells 

 me that in 1880, on the 26th of April, he found a 

 Woodcock's nest in Kilmarnack Wood, co. Water- 

 ford, with three eggs, and on the 28th another, also 

 containing three eggs, some hundred yards from the 

 one first found. He found four nests in the same 

 spot April 1 88 1. 



Mr. L. Patterson wrote to me on the i8th of 

 May, 1 88 1 : " I have just been asked by the agent 

 to the Marquis of Downshire's estates to go and 

 see a Woodcock sitting on her nest and four eggs, 

 in Hillsborough Park." 



Captain A. Morgan informs me that Woodcock 

 nest near Skibbereen, co. Cork, where he lives ; but 

 that the young broods are usually killed by vermin. 



Woodcock breed annually in a large wood at 

 Dundrum, the property of Lord Hawarden. The 

 keepers say that hardly a year passes without their 

 seeing broods of young Cock. This wood takes 

 three days to beat, and Colonel Purejoy recollects 

 when it produced its three hundred Woodcock. A 

 gentleman who shot it in 1878 says the greatest 



