ioo WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



counties, particularly so round about my own home, 

 and they nest early. I have known the chicks out 

 when snow was on the hills. So closely does their 

 down fall in with the mother's plumage, and so 

 closely do they nestle to her, that if they do not 

 pipe you would not know that they were about 

 her. Hills that were bare at one time, that is, 

 comparatively so, are now covered with trees, 

 principally firs. As the water drains from the hills 

 to the moist land at the foot of them, they are dry 

 and the firs make them warm ; you would not feel 

 a gale in a fir wood. There is also a short under- 

 growth of heather, whortle-bushes, rough grass, 

 ferns, and creeping brambles, stone brambles, not 

 thick and matted, but in open order, stuff that you 

 can easily walk through. In such places as these 

 the Woodcocks nest ; some of their old haunts are 

 gone I know, but they have found others suited to 

 them. It is perfectly useless asking any velveteen- 

 coated guardian of the covers whether Woodcocks 

 breed there ; he will tell you in mournful tones 

 that he " ain't sin one on 'em about for a year or 

 more "; also he will give you the most minute details 

 about who it was that shot that last solitary bird. 

 At the same time there may be three or four sitting 

 birds in one cover, and the man knows it. 



After listening to this sort of thing once, I told 

 a gamekeeper in the most emphatic words at com- 

 mand, that I knew some were nesting close to us. 

 With various allusions to his Satanic Majesty, and 

 other individuals of high degree and places of 



