108 GRALLATORES. SCOLOPAX. WOODCOCK. 



the extensive woody tracts in the neighbourhood of Dunkeld 

 and Blair-Athol, planted by the late Duke, have been men- 

 tioned ; a situation, indeed, to all appearance particularly fa- 

 vourable to their habits, exhibiting a great variety of surface 

 covered with wood, and at the same time affording such a 

 profusion of springs, open glades, and moist ground, as to 

 insure to them a constant and abundant supply of food. In 

 Northumberland, the Woodcock has been known to breed in 

 the woods about Netherwitton, and I have now in my collec- 

 tion eggs taken from a nest in Pigdon Wood, not far from 

 Morpeth. In this instance the female appeared not to have 

 had a mate, as the eg^s were found to be all addled after 



7 C*O 



she had sat upon them with great assiduity for nearly a 

 month, towards the conclusion of which time she had become 

 so weak as to be scarcely able to rise from the ground. The 

 first autumnal flight of the Woodcock, on its retreat from 

 the northern countries of Europe, where it breeds and passes 

 the summer, generally takes place towards the end of Sep- 

 tember or beginning of October ; but as this consists of birds 

 whose flight is directed to more southern latitudes than our 

 islands, a few stragglers only remain; or the flight, after 

 resting for a day, proceeds on its course to Portugal, and so 

 onwards to the farthest limit of its equatorial movement. 

 The direction taken by such a great and successive column 

 of these birds, under migration from the north to the southern 

 parts of Europe and Northern Africa, being in a great mea- 

 sure intersected by the south-western coasts of England and 

 Ireland, accounts for the abundance of them in Devonshire, 

 Cornwall, and the countries thus situated, and the still 

 greater numbers found in the southern and western districts 

 of Ireland, compared with the other parts of the kingdom. 

 It is thus also that Woodcocks are generally first observed 

 in these positions, and sometimes long before they are seen 

 in the north of England or Scotland. The succeeding 

 flights, which continue at intervals during October and the 

 two following months, becoming each more limited in extent^ 



