330 SCOLOPACIDJ;. 



they will, like the Curlew, swallow mussels, although not to 

 the same extent, and on dissecting those shot from among 

 rocks and seaweed, he found that small shell-fish had been 

 bolted whole. They also obtain their food under circum- 

 stances which, if mentioned, would hardly prove satisfactory 

 to lovers of ' trail.' 



It is a mistake to suppose that Woodcocks on arrival are 

 lean and out of condition, nor does a continuance of frost 

 reduce them as it does Snipe, although it tames them. Sir 

 K. Payne-Gallwey says that out of hundreds which he ex- 

 amined during the exceptionally long and severe winter of 

 1880-81, only a dozen were small and poor birds, and at the 

 end of the frost he picked out three birds each of which 

 weighed exactly sixteen ounces, a fourth weighing eighteen 

 and a quarter ounces. The latter is very remarkable, for 

 birds of fifteen ounces are far above the average. The 

 Author was indebted to the kindness of Lord Braybrooke for 

 the following 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, December 25th, 1801. 



" MY DEAR Miss HOSTE, 



" The Woodcock which Mr. Hoste inquires 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 

 ounces." f 



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

 fir, weighed down to the ground." 



t It is impossible to question the statement of a lady, but it may be permis- 



