BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 125 



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over in the night and are first heard of in the west 

 of England or in Ireland. Those who have seen the 

 weary, heavy, and short flight of the poor bird the 

 morning after its landing, can understand the physical 

 exhaustion caused by a rough adverse passage. If 

 not disturbed, they lie all day like stones, just where 

 they happen to have pitched, and will in some cases 

 allow themselves to be taken up by hand. A few 

 hours' rest quickly recruits their exhausted energies ; 

 and at night they again resume their flight, which, 

 excepting for the circumstances of the difficult pas- 

 sage, would never have been broken. The autumn 

 of 1870 was one of the best Woodcock seasons ever 

 known for many years on the Lincolnshire coast. On 

 the 18th of October a terrific north-easter brought a 

 large flight ; on the 26th of the same month there 

 was another very heavy gale from N.W., and on that 

 and the succeeding mornings great and unusual 

 numbers were shot all along the east coast of Lincoln- 

 shire and Holderness. Many sportsmen entertain 

 the opinion that the "cocks" cross singly and not in 

 flocks, from the fact of their always being found, the 

 morning after landing, solitary and some distance 

 apart, and also that single birds are occasionally seen 

 at daybreak coming in from the sea. The probability 

 is that the flights break up immediately on making 

 land, each bird dropping alone. The single birds 

 observed to come in at daybreak are doubtless those 

 which have alighted on some of the numerous sand- 



