222 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [cuap. xxvitt. 
I rather astonished an English friend of mine, who was staying 
with me in Inverness-shire during the month of June, by asking 
him to come out woodcock-shooting one evening. And his sur- 
prise was not diminished by my preparations for our battue, which 
consisted of ordering out chairs and cigars into the garden at the 
back of the house, which happened to be just in the line of the 
birds’ flight from the woods to the swamps. After he had killed 
three or four from his chair, we stopped murdering the poor 
birds, who were quite unfit to eat, having probably young ones, 
or eggs, to provide for at home, in the quiet recesses of the 
woods, along the banks of Lochness, which covers afford as good 
woodcock-shooting as any in Scotland. 
The female makes her nest, or rather, lays her eggs—for nest 
she has none—in a tuft of heather, or at the foot of a small tree. 
The eggs are four in number, and resemble those of a plover. 
They are always placed regularly in the nest, the small ends of 
the eggs meeting in the centre. When disturbed from her nest, 
she flutters away like a partridge, pretending to be lame, in 
order to take the attention of the intruder away from her young 
or eggs. It is a singular, but well-ascertained fact, that wood- 
cocks carry their young ones down to the springs and soft 
ground where they feed. Before I knew this, I was greatly 
puzzled, as to how the newly-hatched young of this bird could go 
from the nest, which is often built in the rankest heather, far 
from any place where they could possibly feed, down to the 
marshes. I have, however, ascertained that the old bird lifts her 
young in her feet, and carries them one by one to their feeding- 
ground. Considering the apparent improbability of this curious 
act of the woodcock, and the unfitness of their feet and claws 
for carrying or holding any substance whatever, I should be 
unwilling to relate it on my own unsupported evidence ; but it 
has been lately corroborated by the observations of several intel- 
ligent foresters and others, who are in the habit of passing 
through the woods during March and April. 
The woodcock breeds a second time in July and August. I 
am of opinion that all those which are bred in this country emi- 
grate about the beginning of September, probably about the full 
moon in that month. At any rate they entirely disappear from 
woods where any day in June or July I could find several brace. 
