THE WOODCOCK. 253 



to me : — " I see they are breeding with us this year again." A great 

 number were bred that season, " some scores of young birds " having 

 been observed by him. They seemed to be almost as plentiful as for- 

 merly iu an ordinary winter. In 1846, there were not so many. In the 

 last week of May that year, young birds as large as their parents 

 were seen ; and, on the 30th of the month, a nest with eggs, quite 

 fresh, was found. Until this date, fifteen broods were known to the 

 keeper to have been brought out. A nest was observed within 

 fourteen yards of the spot where one containing four large young birds 

 was noticed in the preceding year ; and within two yards of which, 

 another bird was at the same time raised from its nest with four eggs. 



In the years 1847, 1848, and 1849, woodcocks bred abundantly 

 in Tollymore Park, not less than thirty nests having been seen each 

 year, but they have now become so commonplace as to be compara- 

 tively little noticed. These birds are considered by the keeper 

 to breed twice from the circumstance of his observing them on 

 their nests from February to July ; in the first week of which latter 

 month this year (1849) he saw a nest containing but one fresh- 

 laid egg. The sites of the nests are discovered by the manner in 

 which " the hen flies about in easy circles, uttering her whaap-wJiaap, 

 kisp, hisp, and pointing her head and eye towards the spot where the 

 young rest on a soft bed of leaves, grass, or anything that may have 

 been near the place selected." The keeper believed himself, as al- 

 ready noticed, to have witnessed the old hen carrying off her young 

 when suddenly disturbed. Under the impression of his having been 

 deceived in this matter, he several times followed hens apparently 

 thus burthened to where they alighted, and saw them run off with- 

 out any young bird being there. It is, he says, " the body behind 

 the wings, the tail, legs, and feathers of the belly, that she droops down 

 in a peculiar manner, that gives the appearance of a young bird being 

 clutched up." He has several times been quite near to birds presenting 

 the appearance here described.* 



* Several instances of the parent carrying the young in its foot are brought 

 together in Yarrell's 'British Birds' (vol. ii. p. 591). Mr. St. John remarks, that 

 " regularly as the evening comes on, many woodcocks carry their young ones down 

 to the soft feeding-grounds, and bring them back again to the shelter of the woods 

 before daylight. * * * I have often seen them going down to the swamps in 

 the evening, carrying their young with them. Indeed, it is quite evident that they 

 must in most instances transport the newly-hatched birds in this manner, as their 

 nests are generally placed in dry heathery woods, where the young would inevitably 



