CHANGE OF SEASONS AND OF THE TIMES. 287 



some young birds drop mucli sooner tlian others 

 from inability to continue a consecutive flight, 

 that is a sure sign that disease is doing its 

 office, and tliat disease and death will decimate, 

 if not utterly destroy, the entire nide. Ere 

 these gradual changes in the seasons commenced, 

 we used to think that partridges, being later 

 in nesting than the pheasants, escaped all damage 

 from frost. But in this change of season they 

 have no longer that advantage ; while grouse, 

 in the higher and more northern latitudes, are 

 even still more exposed to changeful vicissitude. 



It is in my remembrance, that if any man found 

 a woodcock's nest in England, it was chronicled as 

 a curious fact by the public press. Of late years 

 woodcocks breed very largely in England. In 

 the New Forest I knew of nine woodcocks on 

 their nests at the same period, and I have, in 

 that ill-used forest, seen their young of all ages. 

 Snipes, that used always to breed in England, 

 in spite of DarwiiVs erroneous assertion that ^^they 

 never did, and do not do so now,'-' breed here 

 more than ever, and in great nmltitudes. I have, 

 if my memory serves me rightly, some nine or 

 ten years ago, made a bag of full-grown snipes 



