188 AMERICAN GAME. 
a yellowish white at the vent, while its ‘European 
congener has all the lower parts of a dull cream color, 
barred with faint dusky waved lines, like the breast 
feathers of some of the falcons. 
It has generally been believed that the large cock 
of the Eastern continent is never found in America; and 
all analogy would go to strengthen that belief, for neither 
of the birds range on their respective continents very far 
to the northward, whereas it is those species only which 
extend into the Arctic regions, and by no means all of 
them, that are common to the two hemispheres. Some 
circumstances have, however, come recently to my know- 
ledge which lead me to doubt whether the large woodcock 
of the Eastern hemisphere does not occasionally find its 
way to this continent, although it is difficult to conceive 
how it should do so, since it must necessarily wing its 
way across the whole width of the Atlantic, from the 
-shores of Ireland or the Azores, which are, so far as is 
ascertained, its extreme western limit. 
A very good English sportsman resident in Philadel- 
phia, who is perfectly familiar with both the species and 
their distinctions, assures me that during the past winter 
a friend brought for his inspection an undoubted English 
woodcock, which he had purchased in the market; it 
weighed twelve ounces, measured twenty-five inches 
from wing +o wing, and had the cream-colored barred 
preast which I have described. The keeper of the stall 
at which this bird was purchased did not know where it 
