THE WOODCOCK 153 



brilliant light from the lighthouses which are situated at 

 those two places. These autumn migrants are frequently 

 found in considerable numbers elsewhere along the 

 coastline in Scotland, Northumberland, Lincolnshire, 

 and on that bold shoulder of Norfolk which, reaching so 

 far eastward, invariably proves a safe draw for many 

 birds of passage. Hundreds of woodcock sometimes 

 arrive in one flight at these landing-places. They 

 usually alight in the night or early morning, and if 

 unmolested they remain in the vicinity one day to 

 recuperate after their long journey, afterwards proceed- 

 ing to the inland coverts or their still more favoured 

 haunts on the western side of our islands ; others, it may 

 be, make off to winter in Spain and the sunnier south. 



Prior to the passage of the Wild Birds' Protection 

 Act, 1880, various non-sporting contrivances, glade-nets, 

 springes, snares, and the like, were employed for captur- 

 ing woodcocks. Another method scarcely, if indeed at 

 all, less deadly than the foregoing, was practised ante- 

 cedently to 1880; this was the shooting of woodcock on 

 the road to their feeding-ground at flight-time. In the 

 evening twilight of the closing days of winter or the 

 early days of spring, the gunner, stationed by ride or 

 glade in the woodcock-covert, intercepted the passing 

 woodcock as certainly as the silent and deadly glade- 

 nets suspended by poacher or keeper of a by-gone 

 period. It was little to be wondered at that with such 

 practices in vogue the woodcock failed to make much 

 headway as a British nesting species, for, going to nest 

 in March, as this bird commonly does in this country, 

 the spring shooter must often have killed his quarry 

 coming straight from its nest. 



Now that the extensive netting and snaring of wood- 



