108 GRALLATORES. SCOLOPAX. Woopcock. 
the extensive woody tracts in the neighbourhood of Dunkeld 
and Blair-Athol, planted by the late Duke, have been men- 
tioned; a situation, indeed, to all appearance particularly fa- 
vourable to their habits, exhibiting a great variety of surface 
covered with wood, and at the same time affording such a 
profusion of springs, open glades, and moist ground, as to 
insure to them a constant and abundant supply of food. In 
Northumberland, the Woodcock has been known to breed in 
the woods about Netherwitton, and I have now in my collec- 
tion eges taken from a nest in Pigdon Wood, not far from 
Morpeth. In this instance the female appeared not to have 
had a mate, as the eggs were found to be all addled after 
she had sat upon them with great assiduity for nearly a 
month, towards the conclusion of which time she had become 
so weak as to be scarcely able to rise from the ground.—The 
first autumnal flight of the Woodcock, on its retreat from 
the northern countries of Europe, where it breeds and passes 
the summer, generally takes place towards the end of Sep- 
tember or beginning of October; but as this consists of birds 
whose flight is directed to more southern latitudes than our 
islands, a few stragglers only remain; or the flight, after 
resting for a day, proceeds on its course to Portugal, and so 
onwards to the farthest limit of its equatorial movement. 
The direction taken by such a great and successive column 
of these birds, under migration from the north to the southern 
parts of Europe and Northern Africa, being in a great mea-~ 
sure intersected by the south-western coasts of England and 
Ireland, accounts for the abundance of them in Devonshire, 
Cornwall, and the countries thus situated, and the still 
greater numbers found in the southern and western districts 
of Ireland, compared with the other parts of the kingdom. 
It is thus also that Woodcocks are generally first observed 
in these positions, and sometimes long before they are seen 
in the north of England or Scotland. The succeeding 
flights, which continue at intervals during October and the 
two following months, becoming each more limited in extent, 
re 
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