WOODCOCK. Class II. 



places they leave. If the wind has favoured their 

 flight, their (lay on the coaft, where they drop, is 

 very fhort, if any : but if they have been forced 

 to ftruggle with an adverfe gale (fuch as a (hip can 

 hardly make way with) they take a day's reft, to 

 recover their fatigue : and fo greatly has their 

 flrength been exhaufted, that they have been taken 

 by hand in Southwald ftreets. They arrive not gre- 

 garious, but feparate and difperied. When the 

 Red wing appears on the coaft in autumn, it is 

 certain the Woodcocks are at hand ; when they 

 Royfion Crozv^ they are come. Between the twelfth 

 and twenty-fifth of March they flock towards the 

 coaft to be ready for their departure : the firft law 

 of nature bringing; them to us, in autumn; the 

 fecond carrying them from us in fpring. If the 

 wind be propitious, they are gone immediately ; 

 but if contrary, they are detained in the neigh- 

 boring woods, or among the ling and furze on 

 the coaft. It is in this crifis that the fportfman 

 finds extraordinary diverfion : the whole country 

 around echoes with the difcharge of guns ; even 

 feventeen brace have been killed by one perfon 

 in a day : but if they are kept any time on the dry 

 heaths, they become fo lean, that they are a prey 

 hardly worth purfuing, at left eating. The inftant 

 a fair wind fprings up, they feize the opportunity, 

 and where the fportfman has feen hundreds one day, 

 he will not find a fingle bird the next. As this 

 extraordinary diverfion depends on the winds, it 



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