THE WOODCOCK. 249 



the first time in 1843. hi 1845 a number of nests — " from a dozen 

 to twenty " — were said to have been observed in the demesne of 

 Florida. The four last-named localities are in the county of Down. 

 On the 1st of May, 1848, a young woodcock was caught in a field 

 near a cover at Powerscourt, Wicklow. It was apparently about six 

 weeks old, which seemed far advanced for that late spring. The speci- 

 men was presented by Colonel Greaves to the Museum of Trinity 

 College, Dublin.* • 



As Florence Court, the seat of the Earl of Enniskillen in Fermanagh, 

 would be a most suitable breeding-haunt for the woodcock, I inquired 

 when there some years ago if nests had ever been found, and was 

 replied to in the negative. Lord Enniskillen having now (Oct. 1849) 

 kindly questioned his present and former keepers, informs me that 

 the bird was never known to breed there by either, and that the latter 

 had never heard his father speak of having seen the woodcock in sum- 

 mer, as he certainly would have done had such a circumstance oc- 

 curred; — "thus (as his lordship remarks) there is what may fairly be 

 considered equivalent to the evidence of three generations of keepers 

 (grandfather, father, and son) against the woodcock having bred in the 

 covers at Florence Court." 



To the preceding mere casual notices, I am happy to be enabled to 

 give the observations of several consecutive years at one locality. 

 These were communicated to me by Mr. James Creighton, gamekeeper 

 to the Earl of Roden, and relate to Tollymore Park, in the county of 

 Down, the residence of that nobleman. 



This park is beautifully situated at the base of the mountains of 

 Mourne — which rise to nearly 3,000 feet in altitude — and possesses 

 considerable variety of surface, abundance of wood of various size, 

 with occasional moist open glades that even in the driest summer 

 would afford food to the woodcock. In 1835, the gamekeeper first 

 (though living there since 1828) became acquainted with the fact, that 

 these birds continued throughout the summer in the park. The first 

 nest he saw, which had the appearance of a partridge's or pheasant's, 

 was situated in a young plantation, at the foot of a larch fir. It con- 

 tained four eggs, on which the old bird sat so close as to allow him and 

 other persons to approach within a foot. When they came very near, 



* Mr. R. Ball. 



