CIIAP. xxvin.] WOODCOCKS. 221 



cock's flight is rapid and steady, instead of being uncertain and 

 o\vl-like, as it often is in the bright sunshine. I consider their 

 vision to be peculiarly adapted to the twilight, and even to the 

 darker hours of night this being the bird's feeding-time. In 

 very severe and protracted snow-storms and frosts I have seen 

 them feeding at the springs during the daytime ; but in moderate 

 weather they pass all the light hours in the solitary recesses of 

 the quietest parts of the woods, although occasionally one will 

 remain all day in the swamp, or near the springs on the hill side, 

 where he had been feeding during the night. When they first 

 arrive, about the month of November, I have sometimes fallen 

 in with two or three brace far up in the mountain, while grouse- 

 shooting. They then sit very close, and are easily killed. The 

 first frost, however, sends them all to the shelter of the woods. 

 No bird seems less adapted for a long flight across the sea than 

 the woodcock ; and it is only by taking advantage of a favour- 

 able wind that they can accomplish their passage. An intelligent 

 master of a ship once told me, that in his voyages to and from 

 Norway and Sweden, he has frequently seen them, tired and 

 exhausted, pitch for a moment or two with outspread wings in 

 the smooth water in the ship's wake ; and having rested them- 

 selves for a few moments, continue their weary journey. 



Although those that remain here breed so early in the year, 

 the woodcocks that migrate do not leave England till the end of 

 March or beginning of April. In the wild extensive woods of 

 Sussex, 1 have often seen them in the evenings, about the begin- 

 ning of April, flying to and fro in chace of each other, uttering 

 a hoarse croaking, and sometimes engaging each other at a kind 

 of tilting-match with their long bills in the air. I remember an 

 old poaching keeper, whose society I used greatly to covet when 

 a boy, shooting three at a shot, while they were engaged in an 

 aerial tournament of this kind. 



There was a sporting turnpike-man (a rare instance of such a 

 combination of professions), on Ashdown forest, in Sussex, who 

 used to kill two or three woodcocks every evening for a week or 

 two in March and April shooting the birds while he smoked 

 his pipe, anil drank his smuggled brandy and water at his turn- 

 pike-gate, which was situated in a glade in the forest, where the 

 birds were in the habit of flying during the twilight. 



