BIRDS 373 



Doubleday in September 1831, the younger man was able to 

 say : ' I have little or no doubt that this bird breeds annually 

 in small numbers in this county.' We can well imagine the 

 pleasure with which the veteran would have welcomed an 

 opportunity of watching a dark-eyed Woodcock brooding shyly 

 over her eggs or russet-coloured young upon the edge of some 

 pet bit of covert ; it was not so ordained. He passed away in 

 1834 — three short years too soon — for, on the 8th of July 

 1837, his son wrote to John Gould: 'I had the good fortune 

 this spring to see four eggs of the Woodcock, which had been 

 found in a wood about nine miles from Carlisle.' In 1842 the 

 Carlisle Patriot of May 5th recorded that George Harrison, a 

 keeper of the Earl of Lonsdale, had that season found two nests 

 of the Woodcock in the covers at Melkinthorpe, and stated 

 further : ' For several previous years Mr. Harrison has found 

 nests of these birds nearly in the same locality, and it is his 

 opinion, as well as that of his brother, Mr. Robert Harrison, 

 that many of these birds if left unmolested after the month of 

 January, instead of migrating, would breed in this climate.' 

 Three young Woodcock were captured in a plantation at the 

 Biddings, on the Netherby estate, in April 1844. 1 The late 

 Mr. Wood of Westward, who spent a long lifetime in that 

 parish, and was an accomplished botanist, wrote in 1880: 'A 

 few years ago the nest of a Woodcock was a great rarity in 

 Cumberland, now it is of frequent occurrence. Last year a pair 

 of these birds had a nest in my parish ; this year the number 

 is doubled, and two nests are also said to have been found in 

 the woods at Edenhall.' 2 Pages of newspaper cuttings, regard- 

 ing Woodcock nests in the Lake district, could now be reprinted, 

 for though there are many parts of the Lake district in which 

 the Woodcock does not nest, yet wherever adequate cover and 

 freedom from disturbance are found, one or two pairs of Wood- 

 cocks nest annually. Many Woodcock nest in the fine sheltered 

 coverts of the Rusland valley, and their nests have often been 

 found in Furness. Mr. W. G. Ainslie, M.P., wrote to me in 

 1889 : 'We have for many years had these birds amongst us all 



1 Carlisle Journal, May 4. 



2 Science Gossip, 1880, p. 190. 



