WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 165 



and where there is low cover to be met with near 

 marshy and sheltered bottoms. They visit us for 

 the most part about the end of October, and migrate 

 again in February. Numerous instances of their 

 breeding have been made known, season after season, 

 in this country; but still the cases when this occurs 

 are isolated : a pair or two, here and there, discover 

 a favourable situation, and are found; but there 

 is no indiscriminate breeding in chosen places, as 

 in the case of its near neighbour, the Jack Snipe. 

 The woodcock appears to be known in all parts of the 

 world. We have it in most parts of Great Britain 

 and Ireland that are suited to its existence : it is 

 found in Orkney and Shetland for a short space of 

 the winter. It breeds in Austria, Silesia, and even 

 in Siberia; and its range extends beyond the Arctic 

 Circle. They have been found in Italy and the East, 

 at Madeira, and 011 the African coasts. With some 

 varieties of plumage, they are to be met with amid 

 the Himalayas, and in the Alpine districts of India 

 generally, as well as at Japan. 



The woodcock, when it breeds in this country, 

 selects a dry spot, generally at a small distance from 

 water : here dry leaves, a little fern, perchance some 

 moss, may form its careless nest : and here the hen 

 will lay four or five eggs of the size of those of a 

 pigeon; in colour of a pale purple brown, or dirty 

 yellow white, with brown markings. One writer 

 speaks thus of nests that were found : " the soil was 

 dry and gravelly, the grass tolerably long, without 



