PLATE I 



i 



WOODCOCK. Scolopax rusticula 



May 6///, 1895. This nest was shown to me by a keeper, who said it was 

 the latest that had ever come under his notice. It was in a small plantation 

 of oak-trees near the road-side, in a bare part of the wood among withered 

 nettle-stalks and dead oak leaves. The nest was a mere hollow in the ground, 

 and was carefully lined with oak leaves. The bird was sitting on it when I 

 first saw it, but the eggs were not very long laid, and she left the nest while 

 I was focussing my camera ; however, I secured two very good photographs 

 of the nest 



In this same plantation two years before I found three Woodcocks' nests 

 near the end of the first week in April, and all of them contained their full 

 complement of eggs, so it seems very probable that this was the second nest 

 made by this pair, the first having very likely been destroyed by some vermin. 



On this same day, not half a mile from this little plantation, I was 

 walking home through a corner of the big wood near, and stumbled upon a 

 Woodcock with three young ones. The old bird carried off one of them 

 between her legs, and the other two hid themselves. I found one of them 

 hiding under a piece of dead bracken, and it could very nearly fly. The old 

 Woodcock seemed to have great difficulty in raising the young bird from the 

 ground. Very possibly, being in such a hurry to get away, she had not got 

 a good hold of it. 



In the valley of the Forth, where most of my opportunities of observing 

 the Woodcock during the breeding season have occurred, the numbers of 

 nests varies greatly in different years. In some seasons the keepers come 

 across a great many nests while collecting Pheasants' eggs, while in others 

 hardly a nest is seen. 



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