WOODCOCKS riElDFAEES. 133 



wlien you advance that, " When they have thus feasted, they 

 again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the 

 best fare they can -within a certain district, having no induce- 

 ment to go in quest of fresh-turned earth." Now, if you 

 mean that the business of congregating is quite at an end 

 irom the conclusion of wheat-sowing, to the season of barley 

 and oats, it is not the case with us ; for larks and chaffinches, 

 and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in the 

 very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with 

 his ploughs and harrows. 



Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and field- 

 fares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and 

 to retire to some districts more suitable to the purpose of 

 breeding. That the former pair before they retire, and that 

 the hens are forward with egg, I myseli", when I was a 

 sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot be denied 

 but that now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest,* or 

 young birds, discovered in some part or other of this island; 

 but then they are always mentioned as rarities, and some- 

 what out of the common course of thiags ; but as to redwings 

 and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that 

 I could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of 

 those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I the 

 more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since, to all 

 appearance, the same food, in summer as well as in winter, 

 might support them here which maintains their congeners, 

 the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the 

 .summer through. Prom hence it appears, that it is not 

 food alone wMch determines some species of birds with 

 regard to their stay or departure. Keldfares and redwings 

 disappear sooner or later, according as the waim weather 

 comes on earlier or later ; for I well remember, after that 

 dreadful winter, 1789-40, that cold north-east winds con- 

 tinued to blow on through April and May, and that these 

 kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart 

 as usual, but were seen lingering about tiU. the beginning 

 of June. 



* 'Woodcocks breed much more frequently in this country than is generally 

 supposed. Several nests are annually found in Sir Charles Taylor's woods, at 

 Hollycombc, in Sussex, and in various parts in England and Scotland. — Ed. 



