248 SCOLOPAC1D.E. 



May, sent a couple of young ones half-fledged,* that were taken out of 

 a nest at Wilton in this county, the seat of Mr. Alcock. The nest was 

 on the ground among brushwood, and the cry of the young birds like 

 the sound produced by a child's whistle ; this is the third year they 

 have bred at Wilton. At the time I received the young birds, there 

 was at Ballyarthur, county of Wicklow, the seat of Mr. Bailey, a nest 

 with four eggs in it." Capt. Walker subsequently mentioned- the 

 woodcock as breeding in the covers of Killoughrim Wood, Wexford, 

 and remarked that the young which he had examined, " although fully 

 as large as old birds, had not got the strong feathers in the tail, but a 

 soft curly down instead." In the month of June or July 1836, a 

 woodcock was shot, and another seen about the same time at Springvale 

 (Down), the residence of Major Matthews. On the 4th of June, 1837, 

 an old female bird was killed at the vale of Ovoca, Wicklow. In May 

 1 838, a woodcock was captured at Stormont, near Belfast. In the 

 month of June 1837, a woodcock was seen at Shanes-Castle Park 

 (Antrim), by Adams, the gamekeeper, who stated that about ten years 

 previously he had seen a young bird which was found by a man 

 engaged in cutting whins — among which the nest was placed — near 

 Glenarm Park, in the same county. An adult bird was also seen there 

 in the summer of 1840 or 1841. At Markree Castle, county Sligo 

 (the seat of E. J. Cooper, Esq.), a brood of four young birds was met 

 with at the end of May 1838 ; the first known to have been produced 

 there. Three pair at least reared broods in Gurteen Wood, county of 

 Tipper ary, in the summer of 1841.f Young native -bred woodcocks 

 were sold that season in Dublin market, and an adult bird was pro- 

 cured alive in the month of June, at Malahide, a few miles from the 

 metropolis.^ In 1842, a gentleman informed me that two or three 

 pair had bred for several years lately at the country seat of a relative 

 of his in the county of Carlow. At Divernagh Glen {Armagh), within 

 three miles of Newry, two pair bred in 1844. || In July that year, one 

 or two old birds were seen by the gamekeeper in Hillsborough Park. 

 Two broods were observed at Donard Lodge, adjoining Tollymore Park, 

 in the summer of 1842 ; and in that of 1843 two nests and one brood 

 of young birds. At Clauvarrachan, two miles from Castlewellan, and 

 in the same district as the last-named place, a nest was discovered for 



* One of these was kindly sent to me by Capt. Walker. f Mr. R. Davis, Jun. 

 % Mr. It. Ball. II Mr. James Mac Adam, Jun. 



