Cuass II. WOODCOCK’SNIPE. | 
vored me with the following curious ac- 
count. — . 
“« From some old and:experienced sportsmen, 
who live on the coast, I collected the following 
particulars. Woodcocks come over sparingly 
in the first week of October, the greater numbers 
not arriving till the months of November and 
December, and always after sun-set. It is the 
wind and not the moon that determines the 
time of their arrival; and it is probable that 
this should be the case, as they come hither in 
quest of food, which fails then in the places 
they leave. If the wind has favored their flight, 
their stay on the coast, where they drop, is very 
short, if any: but if they have been forced to 
struggle with an adverse gale (such as a ship 
can hardly make way with) they take a day’s 
rest, to recover their fatigue; and so greatly 
has their strength been exhausted, that they 
have been taken by hand in Southwold streets. 
They arrive not gregarious, but separate and 
dispersed. When the Redwing appears on the 
coast in autumn, it is certain the Woodcocks 
are at hand; when the Royston crow, they are 
come. Between the twelfth and twenty-fifth of 
March they flock towards the coast to be ready 
for their departure: the first law of nature 
bringing them to us, in autumn; the second 
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