ADDITIONAL NOTES. 331 



at the same period ; and, in 1816, he remembers, that he 

 took large female salmon, that had the period of partu- 

 rition protracted as late as March. 



(On the scolopax, page 122.) 



I shall say a few words on the congeners of this 

 bird (the solitary snipe), and on the three varieties so 

 much better known in Europe. The woodcock feeds 

 indiscriminately upon earthworms, small beetles, and 

 various kinds of larvae, and its stomach sometimes 

 contains seeds, which I suspect have been taken up 

 in boring amongst the excrements of cattle; yet the 

 stomach of this bird has something of the gizzard 

 character, though not so much as that of the land-rail, 

 which I have found half filled with seeds of grasses, 

 and' even containing corn, mixed with may-bugs, earth- 

 worms, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. The wood- 

 cock, 1 believe, breeds habitually only in high northern 

 latitudes ; yet there are woods in England, particularly 

 one in Sussex, near the borders of Hampshire, in 

 which one or two couple of these birds, it is said, may 

 always be found in summer. I suspect these wood- 

 cocks are from the offspring of birds which had paired 

 for their passage, but being detained by an accident 

 happening to one of them, stayed and raised a young 

 brood in England, and the young ones probably had 

 their instincts altered by the accidents of their being 

 born in England, and being in a place well supplied 

 with food. It is not improbable, that they likewise 

 raised young ones, and that the habit of staying has 

 become hereditary. There can be no doubt, that 

 woodcocks are very constant to their local attach- 

 ments; woodcocks, that have been preserved in a 

 particular wood for a winter, always return to it, if 



