Class II. WOODCOCK SNIPE. . 



vored me with the following curious ac- 

 count. 



" From some old and experienced sportsmen, 

 who live on the coast, I collected the following 

 particulars. Woodcocks come over sparingly 

 in the first week oi October, the greater numbers 

 not arrivins: till the months of November and 

 December, and always after sun-set. It is the 

 wind and not the moon that determines the 

 time of their arrival ; and it is probable that 

 this should be the case, as they come hither in 

 quest of food, which fails then in the places 

 they leave. If the wind has favored their flight, 

 their stay on the coast, where they drop, is very 

 short, if any : but if they have been forced to 

 struggle with an adverse gale (such as a ship 

 can hardly make way with) they take a day's 

 rest, to recover their fatigue ; and so greatly 

 has their strength been exhausted, that they 

 have been taken by hand in Soittlmold streets. 

 They arrive not gregarious, but separate and 

 dispersed. When the Redwing appears on the 

 coast in autumn, it is certain the Woodcocks 

 ai^e at hand ; when the Royston crow, they are 

 come. Between the twelftli and twenty-fifth of 

 March they flock towards the coast to be ready 

 for their departure : the first law^ of nature 

 bringing them to us, in autumn; the second 



