210 GRALL.E. 



land, it is twilight all night long in the summer ; and there- 

 fore there is no want of anything but proper cover for the 

 birds. 



Plantations of deciduous trees, in the southern and warmer 

 parts of the country, would not suit them, because the ground 

 under them is either dry or covered with grass and other 

 rank vegetation ; but there are very many places along the 

 bottoms of the hills that have been planted with pines, which 

 are interspersed with small pools and springs, which remain 

 humid in the summer, and seem to be fit pastures for the 

 birds, at the same time that they break the sweep of the hill 

 storms, and are of great service to the cultivated fields. 

 Along the secondary hills on the south side of the Gram- 

 pians, and also on the " Braes of Moray," and many other 

 places, very extensive plantations of the kind alluded to have 

 been already formed ; and as in winter, or at least to a very 

 late period of the autumn, woodcocks are very numerous in 

 these, there is little doubt of their remaining there to breed 

 in much greater numbers than has been supposed. One 

 ground of corroboration is, that the woodcocks stow symp- 

 toms of pairing before they quit the southern parts of the 

 country, as early indeed as the month of February, by which 

 time they lose all their delicate flavour, and a^re not fit for the 

 table. 



Our information respecting their habits in the breeding- 

 places is neither precise nor complete ; but that as well as 

 their habits when they are with us, shows that they are hide- 

 ling birds ; and that, as in the case with the dottrel, they may 

 even now nestle in numbers in the remoter wooded parts of 

 our own mountains without being observed. The old birds 



o 



are very voracious feeders ; and where such is the case in other 

 birds, the young are always more so ; and as they do not 

 take the wing even in winter unless they are compelled, or 

 when they are shifting their ground, they may remain for 



