AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 37 



144. WOODCOCK. 



Scolopax rusticula. 



Although the Woodcock is known to the great 

 majority of our fellow countymen only as an autumnal 

 migrant, several instances of its breeding within our 

 borders are on record, and it is more than probable 

 that many more have remained unknown, or at all 

 events unrecorded. Morton, at p. 428 of his work on 

 the 'Natural History of Northamptonshire,' states " 'tis 

 very rarely indeed that any Woodcocks or Snipes, 

 the former of them especially, stay the summer and 

 breed with us ; yet as rare as it is, there was found 

 a nest of young Woodcocks in a moist ground nigh 

 Morsley Wood, Northamptonshire, anno 1699, which 

 were presented to Sir Edward NichoUs." I well 

 remember hearing of the finding of some young 

 Woodcocks on the manor of Wadenhoe, and on 

 making enquiry of Perkins, who still is head game- 

 keeper on that property, he informed me, through 

 Lieut. -Col. Irby, that on May 7th, 1863, at the bottom 

 of Little Wadenhoe Wood, he saw one old and four 

 young Woodcocks, the latter as big as Pheasants a 

 month old, and able to fly a little way; he shot one 

 young one and caught another, following it up ; 

 never saw others in breeding-season in these parts. 

 From W. Jones, gamekeeper to L. Loyd, Esq., at 

 Monk's Orchard, Kent, I received a letter, dated 

 June 17, 1887, in which he wrote as follows : — 

 "While in the service of T. Phillips, Esq., as game- 

 keeper, in the end of July, 1862, I saw what I 

 thought to be an old Woodcock cross the ride in 

 Cotterstock Wood in front of me ; on walking into 



