346 Mr. W. Thompson on the Breedinff of 



for the last few years woodcocks have been gradually increa- 

 sing at this season. The general augmentation cannot, I con- 

 ceive, be attributed merely to the circumstance of the first 

 young birds bred in the country having continued to multiply 

 therein. That they have done so, however, may be fairly con- 

 sidered as evinced in the annual increase of the species about 

 its chief habitats, but is not, I think, sufficient to account 

 for the presence of these birds in the widely distant localities 

 in which they have occurred. Most migratory birds appear 

 to be in some degree affected by latitude in their movements, 

 as w^ell as by the isotherial and isothermal lines, or those under 

 which the mean heat of summer and of winter is the same. 

 From them the woodcock apparently differs, in being influ- 

 enced solely by climate in the selection of its summer haunts. 

 In the warmest countries it frequents, this species is believed 

 merely to ascend from the plains to the highest mountains to 

 breed*. It is so in the extreme south of Europe, if my in- 

 formant be correct in stating that they nestle in summer in 

 the mountains of Albania, where in the lowlands they are abun- 

 dant during winter. To the Alps they resort in numbers in 

 the breeding season ; but here another question arises, which 

 will apply to all but the most southern countries, to which al- 

 lusion has just been made. 



Are the birds which breed in the mountains of the extreme 

 south of Europe the same individuals which frequent their 

 base in the winter, or are they from a greater distance, those 

 from their base migrating further northwards, and is this " the 

 order of their going^' from south to north throughout Europe ? 

 According to this view, the British Islands would be looked 

 upon as the most northern limits of the flight of such indivi- 

 duals as nestle here, and we may readily in such case imagine 

 the birds to be attracted in their vernal flight by the first suit- 

 able places, in these islands or elsewhere, that may occur, and 

 at once take possession of them. The two following state- 

 ments, although they may not go far enough to establish this 

 point, yet seem to favour it in regard to some localities. Sir 

 F. Mackenzie remarks, with reference to Conan in Ross-shire, 

 " It is probable that the parent birds sought this spot for the 

 * Lathain, loe. cit. 



