VOL. VII. J NOTES. 325 



ten were shot and more were seen there. On January 

 11th one was found m a garden at Hornsea, and on Jan- 

 uary 12th two more were seen by a gardener there, quite 

 exhausted. 



On the 19th at Winestead nineteen were shot and many 

 more put up, whilst at the same time Goldcrests were 

 present in large numbers. During the same period several 

 Woodcock were shot near Beverley. At Winsetts on the 

 Humber ten were shot. Eighty to ninety were shot in 

 two days on the Scarborough racecourse, and at Boynton, 

 near Bridlington, on January 23rd, thirty were shot. On 

 January 29th fourteen, and on January 31st twelve were 

 shot at Burton. On February 14th they had completely 

 disappeared. In a great many cases the birds were in 

 open grassland, sometimes far from woods and from their 

 usual haunts at this time of the year. 



The return journey of the Woodcock in east Yorkshire 

 usually commences in January, and the birds frequent 

 our coverts till May, though they never stay to breed, 

 but the journey is apparently leisurely. Small parties 

 only are seen and then never far from their usual feeding- 

 grounds. 



The present numbers are altogether abnormal, and point 

 to a large and sudden immigration. At the time a strong 

 south-easterly wind was blowing, the birds were very 

 exhausted and dropped in the most unlikely places. The 

 fact of their staying in the neighbourhood till early 

 February, instead of passing on at once, is also unusual. 

 I may add that, with very few exceptions, they were in good 

 condition. Perhaps some of your correspondents can tell 

 me where they came from. 



Correspondence with shooting men in the south-west 

 of Ireland has shown that our birds pass on there from the 

 autumn immigration, but in the present case these corres- 

 pondents state that there has been no diminution in the 

 numbers of birds there. They must therefore have come 

 from abroad, though the direction of the wind — south- 

 east — ^would hardly be favourable for a flight from the 

 Continent. The exceptionally hard weather prevailing all 

 over Scandinavia, the Baltic provinces, and Holland and 

 Belgium, precludes the idea of their having come from that 

 direction, and if they came from further south the question 

 suggests itself as to whether that is the place of origin of, 

 at any rate, some of our autumn immigrants as well as the 

 goal of the return-home wave which usually commences in 

 east Yorkshire in January. E, W. Wade 



