110 GRALLATORES. SCOLOPAX. WOODCOCK. 



wasting effects of very long-continued exertions. From the 

 facts I am about to mention, it appears that they fly at a 

 considerable altitude (as indeed do most birds when per- 

 forming their migratory movements), to avoid, it is pre- 

 sumed, the currents of air so frequent near the surface of 

 the earth. A respectable person who lived upon the coast, 

 and who, being a keen pursuer of wildfowl, was in the habit 

 of frequenting 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, se- 

 parated, and flew towards the interior. Some of them he 

 observed to alight in the hedges immediately adjoining the 

 coast ; these he pursued and shot, and which proved, as he 

 surmised by the view he had of them as they flew past him, 

 to be Woodcocks. The haunts selected by these birds, for 

 their residence during the day-time, are usually the closest 

 brakes of birch and other brushy underwood, and where the 

 ground, from the deep shade, is nearly free from herbage ; 

 and, for this reason, thick fir plantations of ten or twelve years'* 

 growth are a favourite resort. In woods that are very exten- 

 sive they are generally found, and abound most in thickets by 

 the sides of open glades, or where roads intersect, as by these 

 they pass to and from their feeding ground at evening and 

 in the dawn of the morning. Unless disturbed, they remain 

 quietly at roost upon the ground during the whole day, but 

 as soon as the sun is wholly below the horizon, they are in 

 full activity, and taking flight nearly at the same instant, 

 leave the woods and cover for the adjoining meadows, or 

 open land, over which they disperse themselves, and are fully 

 engaged in search of food during the whole night. Advan- 

 tage has long been taken of this regular mode of going to 

 and returning from the feeding grounds, by the fowler, in 



