THE WOODCOCK. 239 



powder in the pans of our guns, which were of the best descrip- 

 tion, but with the flint locks of that time, so damp that it would 

 not ignite. 



A rather singular circumstance occurred to a friend when cock- 

 shooting at Redhall (Antrim) : he fired at a woodcock, which 

 alone he saw, but on going to the spot where it fell he found, to 

 his surprise, a fine cock -pheasant dead at its side — the keeper, 

 who was present, observed the latter bird to fly up within range 

 of the gun just at the moment the trigger was pulled at the 

 woodcock. This species is the favourite bird of pursuit with 

 trained Peregrine falcons, as particularly noticed in the account of 

 the latter, in the first volume of tins work. The woodcock is 

 very expert in escaping the sportsman; seeing whom, when 

 sprung, it wheels or turns most adroitly to avoid him. T have 

 known an old sportsman to be much annoyed by his failing to 

 get a shot at one which, for a considerable part of a winter, 

 frequented a certain portion of a glen on his property, near a 

 bridge. The bird, on being raised, always wheeled suddenly 

 under the arch, and escaped. 



On examination of the stomachs of thirteen woodcocks, killed 

 at different periods and in every kind of weather, from October to 

 March, one was found to contain only small pebbles ; ten, vege- 

 table matter, chiefly Conferva (in one instance an aquatic moss) ; 

 several of them worms of small or moderate size, insect larvae, 

 aquatic Coleoptera, together with a few pebbles. The vegetable 

 matter, of which there is often a considerable quantity, probably 

 remains intact after the gastric juice has acted on the worms and 

 other animal food, and thus appears disproportionate to the other 

 contents. 



Varieties. — The woodcock is subject to considerable variety in 

 plumage, becoming sometimes white or fawn-coloured, and occasionally 

 exhibiting a mixture of both colours. One correspondent has a spe- 

 cimen with white wings, and another mentions a black woodcock (not 

 Scolopax Sabini) having been shot in December 1841, in Queen's- 

 county. One with cream-coloured primaries was shot at Castlereagh, 



