222 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. XXVIIT. 



I rather astonished an English friend of mine, who was staying 

 with me in Inverness-shire during the month of June, by asking 

 him to come out woodcock-shooting one evening. And his sur- 

 prise was not diminished by my preparations for our battue, which 

 consisted of ordering out chairs and cigars into the garden at the 

 back of the house, which happened to be just in the line of the 

 birds' flight from the woods to the swamps. After he had killed 

 three or four from his chair, we stopped murdering the poor 

 birds, who were quite unfit to eat, having probably young ones, 

 or eggs, to provide for at home, in the quiet recesses of the 

 woods, along the banks of Lochness, which covers afford as good 

 woodcock-shooting as any in Scotland. 



The female makes her nest, or rather, lays her eggs for nest 

 she has none in a tuft of heather, or at the foot of a small tree. 

 The eggs are four in number, and resemble those of a plover. 

 They are always placed regularly in the nest, the small ends of 

 the eggs meeting in the centre. When disturbed from her nest, 

 she flutters away like a partridge, pretending to be lame, in 

 order to take the attention of the intruder away from her young 

 or eggs. It is a singular, but well-ascertained fact, that wood- 

 cocks carry their young ones down to the springs and soft 

 ground where they feed. Before I knew this, I was greatly 

 puzzled^ as to how the newly-hatched young of this bird could go 

 from the nest, which is often built in the rankest heather, far 

 from any place where they could possibly feed, down to the 

 marshes. I have, however, ascertained that the old bird lifts her 

 young in her feet, and carries them one by one to their feeding- 

 ground. Considering the apparent improbability of this curious 

 act of the woodcock, and the unfitness of their feet and claws 

 for carrying or holding any substance whatever, I should be 

 unwilling to relate it on my own unsupported evidence ; but it 

 has been lately corroborated by the observations of several intel- 

 ligent foresters and others, who are in the habit of passing 

 through the woods during March and April. 



The woodcock breeds a second time in July and August. I 

 am of opinion that all those which are bred in this country emi- 

 grate about the beginning of September, probably about the full 

 moon in that month. At any rate they entirely disappear from 

 woods where any day in June or July I could find several brace. 



