WOODCOCK. 1 5 



indications of youth than of sex, and are obliterated by 

 degrees, and in succession, from the base to the end of the 

 feather. 



The weight of a Woodcock, from its great variation, is 

 a matter of interest with the naturalist as well as the 

 sportsman. A young male bird of the year, in October, 

 will sometimes weigh only seven ounces; an old female 

 will frequently weigh fourteen or fifteen ounces. I am in- 

 debted to the kindness of Lord Braybrooke for the follow- 

 ing particulars of some Woodcocks of very large size, with 

 permission to attach the statements to this history. 



Copy of a letter from Lady Peyton to Miss Hoste, 

 dated Uggeshall, Dec. 25th, 1801. 



11 MY DEAR Miss HOSTE, 



" The Woodcock which Mr. Hoste enquires after, 

 was found sitting on a very low branch of a fir-tree in the 

 long plantation at Narborough,* about eleven o'clock in the 

 morning, by James Crow the postilion, who was exercising 

 the coach-horses. He came back with the intelligence to 

 the house, and the keeper immediately went out and shot 

 the Woodcock. I saw it weighed both in scales and steel- 

 yards, as did Sir Henry, and a carpenter at work from 

 Swaffham ; and, wonderful as the weight may appear, it 

 was exactly twenty-seven ounces. I believe it was about 

 1775 or 1776. Some years before that, a Woodcock was 

 killed at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, which weighed twenty-four 



" Lady Peyton's brother, the late Lord Stradbroke, then 

 Sir John Rous, told me (Lord Braybrooke,) he recollected 



* The snow was deep, and the bird was resting on the branch of a spruce-fir, 

 weighed down to the ground. 



