Jl8 BRITISH BIRDS. 



THE WOODCOCK. 



(Scolopax Rmticola, Linn. Becnssc ordinaire, Temm.) 



THE Woodcock measures fourteen inches in 

 length, twenty-six in breadth, and weighs about 

 twelve ounces. The shape of the head is remark- 

 able, being rather obtusely triangular than round, 

 with the eyes placed near the top, and the ears 

 very forward, nearly on a line with the corners of 

 the mouth. The upper mandible, which measures 

 about three inches, is furrowed nearly its whole 

 length, and at the tip it projects beyond, and hangs 

 over, the under one, ending in a kind of knob, 

 which, like those of others of the same genus, is 

 susceptible of the finest feeling, and calculated, by 

 that means, (aided, perhaps, by an acute smell,) to 

 find the small worms in the soft moist grounds, 

 from whence it extracts them with its sharp-pointed 



