The Woodcock. '°5 



Young birds have the outer margin of the first primary barred with chestnut 

 saw-teeth like the rest, are more distinctly barred on the lower back and tail- 

 coverts, and the legs and feet are of a darker and dingier brown. 



Nestling, fawn colour, with a broad chestnut bar down the spine from bill to 

 tail boi'dered with cream colour ; a black line through the eye. 



The nest is usually placed on a drier hillock in a wood where the trees are 

 not very high or thick; often at the foot of a young Scotch fir, or other tree. I 

 have found about thirty nests in Northumberland, and take some credit for only 

 possessing one egg, which was an addled one. The nest is a mere hollow in the 

 moss, a few dead leaves (oak-leaves, frequently) being added as incubation pro- 

 gresses. I cannot say whether male or female takes exclusively the duty of 

 incubation, or both conjointly, never having handled a Woodcock shot in the 

 breeding season. But for some time after hatching one or other of the parents 

 is in close attendance upon the young birds, and sometimes both. I have more 

 than once seen the young birds conducted about a shady wood in broad daylight. 

 Most writers speak of four as the usual number of eggs, but I have oftener found 

 three only. They are not noticeably pyriform, are of a light drab (occasionally 

 brown), spotted and blotched finely (seldom boldly) with blue-grey, light brown, and 

 dark umber. As is well known, the old birds carry the young away when danger 

 threatens. I have several times seen this done, and quite agree with Hancock's 

 view ; the old bird drops on the young one to be moved, with one foot on each 

 side of it, and snatches it up at the moment she takes wing again, so that her 

 feet, between which it is, press it close to her breast. The Woodcock is an early 

 breeder, nesting sometimes in March, but usually the eggs are laid in April, and 

 I have never known of fresh eggs later than the end of that month. 



Though many breed with us, there is a large migration from the North in 

 late autumn. If the moon is full about the end of October, they appear to come 

 in a big "rush" then, but sometimes in driblets as early as the end of September, 

 as late as mid-November. But their movements are largely influenced by the 

 wind and atmosphere, as well as the moon ; if the weather is foggy, or they are 

 exhausted by a heavy contrary wind, they drop on the coast as soon as they touch 

 it, and large bags are sometimes made on the sand-hills by those on the look-out 

 for them. If the wind is light and weather clear, they seem to pass inland at 

 once to favourite and suitable covers. Should frost come — which drives the worms 

 down, and also prevents the birds from probing — Cock move south and west. 

 Therefore it is in our south-west counties, Wales and West Ireland, where, owing 

 to the Gulf Stream, frost and cold are seldom severe, that the best Woodcock 

 shooting is to be had, after the seasonal migration is over. Though they travel 



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