NOTES AND QUERIES. 149 
Woodcocks.—It might be interesting to ascertain the experience of 
your readers in the matter of Woodcocks during the past season. Here in 
Oxfordshire both the numbers and weights of the birds have been abnormal. 
This would seem to point, so far as numbers are concerned, to the mildness 
of the weather, which may have arrested them on their westward passage, 
and, so far as weight is concerned, to the sufficiency of food they have 
found,—due also, perhaps, to the softness of the ground. During the 
third week in January one of my keepers shot two Woodcocks, right and 
left, each of which weighed over a pound, thus beating Sir F. Chautrey’s 
record so far as weight was concerned. Woodcocks are sald to have been 
shot weighing nine or ten ounces more, but I doubt if any living person 
has seen them. If it should prove that Woodcocks have been more scarce 
than usual in Devonshire last season, I think my theory may be assumed 
to be correct. I am given to understand that these birds have been more 
abundant than usual this winter in the east of Ireland. W. Harcourt 
(Nuneham Park, Abingdon). 
[We do not know how our correspondent ascertained the weight of 
Chantrey’s Woodcocks. It is not mentioned in the extracts from the Holkham 
Game Book, nor in Mr. Stanhope’s account of the well-known feat printed 
in Muirhead’s ‘Winged Words on Chantrey’s Woodcocks,’ published in 
1857.—Ep.] 
Gadwall in Somerset.—The Gadwall seems to me of sufficiently rare 
occurrence in this county to make the capture of one worth recording. I 
saw a female of this species at Mrs. Petherick’s, the birdstuffer at Taunton, 
early in February. and wrote to the owner—Mr. Hill, of Langport—for 
some information as to its capture, and in due course received the following 
account :—“‘ ‘l'he Gadwall duck was shot on January 10th, 1889, in Sedge- 
moor, about three miles from Langport: there were a duck and drake 
together, but the latter managed to get away. A drake was shot in the 
same district about three years ago.”—Cxci Smirs (Bishop's Lydeard, 
Ornithological Notes from Yorkshire.—The past antumn in this part 
of Yorkshire was marked by the occurrence of several of the more 
uncommon species of predatory birds. During the month of October and 
early part of November I heard of the capture of two Peregrines, two 
Rough-legged Buzzards, and a Hen Harrier. A Hobby also was reported, 
but on inspection proved to be a Merlin. One of the Peregrines was 
shot under the Castle Cliff about the end of the first week in October, and 
was an adult and rather large bird, probably a female. The second 
specimen was shot on the coast between Scarborough and Filey, in a little 
bay known to our fishermen as Pudding Hole. It is a falcon of the year, 
and measured 19} inches from beak to the extremity of the tail, and 
