WHITE AND PIED WOODCOCKS 



Varieties of the Woodcock with more or less 

 white about them, or in other words with feathers 

 in which (probably from injury by shot) there has 

 been a failure in the secretion of the colouring 

 pigment, are not very uncommon. Indeed, hardly 

 a shootingf season comes round in which we do not 

 see a few and hear of others. On November 13, 

 1897, a pied bird of this description was shot near St 

 Keverne, Cornwall, and was forwarded for preserva- 

 tion to Messrs Rowland Ward & Co., who were 

 good enough to send it for my inspection. In this 

 example three flight feathers in the left wing were 

 pure white, and there were also several white 

 feathers in the wing-coverts. The rest of the 

 plumage was of the normal colour. The bird, an 

 old one, was in good condition and weighed 12J oz. 

 The correspondent who communicated the cir- 

 cumstance of its having been shot remarked in his 

 letter that he would be glad to know whether any- 

 one had ever met with a similar freak ; for although 

 he had handled, as he said, a large number of 

 Woodcocks, and had seen two cream-coloured 

 specimens, he had never before seen a pied one. 



On October 26, 1897, ^ pure white Woodcock 

 was killed on the Pitcroy shootings. Strathspey, be- 

 longing to Mr C. Pelham Burn, and, as a great 



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