372 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



the tenants were obliged to sell them to the lord for one penny 

 each ; they were taken by springs and traps : but since the 

 country was stripped of wood, they make but a short stay here 

 in their passage, and are of late years become very scarce.' 

 I have conversed with several persons who were in the habit of 

 snaring Woodcock in their younger days. Quite recently Mr. 

 Ainslie of Grizedale wrote to me : ' When I was a boy, say 

 1845-50, I recollect our moors were literally covered with 

 sprints, and few of these very silly birds escaped.' Prior to the 

 present century the Woodcock was uniformly regarded as only 

 a periodical or winter visitant to the north-west of England. 

 John Gough of Kendal remarks in some notes written in 1792 : 

 ; March .... 18, Woodcocks, Scolopax rusticula, are very 

 abundant at present, after disappearing for a fortnight. These 

 visitors, perhaps, are on their return from Ireland to the Con- 

 tinent,' an interesting observation, as shewing how well the 

 migratory journeys of the Woodcock were even then understood. 

 He recorded the return of the species on the 2d of October in 

 the same year. 1 Dr. Heysham observes : ' The Woodcock is 

 sometimes seen in Cumberland the last week in September ; but 

 they are seldom plentiful till the middle or latter end of 

 October. They begin to take their departure in March ; but a 

 few are seen, almost every year, in April. Instances, though 

 very rare, occur of their breeding in England.' The same 

 writer adds in another place : ' In short, from the observations 

 I have made on the appearance and disappearance of the birds 

 of passage, I am strongly inclined to believe that cceteris paribus 

 as many Woodcocks remain during the summer in England 

 as swallows in winter.' 



Those of us who have grown up within the last thirty years, 

 during which the Woodcock has been generally recognised as 

 breeding abundantly both in England generally and in the 

 Lake district in particular, are hardly competent to under- 

 stand the interest which attached to the nesting of the Wood- 

 cock early in our own century. Before the old doctor's death, 

 his son, T. C. Heysham, had recognised the change in the 

 habits of the Woodcock ; for, in a letter written to Henry 

 1 Gentleman 's Magazine, 1792, p. 1197. 



