378 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



months. Under the old name of Judcock, it is mentioned 

 three times in the Naworth Accounts of 1621. Thus we find 

 an entry on the 27th of November : ' Snipes and jude-cocks, 7, 

 v d .' Two entries follow in December : ' 6 juge cocks, iiij d ., , 

 and ' Jugcocks, 2, and a blackburn, j d .' Although unknown in 

 flocks, and chiefly met with singly or in pairs, the first stragglers 

 are generally reported to me almost simultaneously, between the 

 last days of September and the first week of October. Most 

 sportsmen have had frequent occasion to remark the astonishing 

 pertinacity with which individuals of this favourite ' gibier ' 

 adhere to close cover, preferring to lie up almost at the feet of 

 the gunner rather than to run gauntlet of a ' twelvebore.' The 

 tameness of the ' Jack ' becomes accentuated in severe and 

 wintry weather, when even this hardy little northerner finds 

 a difficulty in procuring a subsistence in the neighbourhood of 

 such springs and ' runners ' as may fortunately prove the last 

 to freeze up. 



RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 



Macrorhamphus griseus (Gmel. ). 



Writing to Yarrell on December 8th, 1835, Mr. T. C. Hey- 

 sham observes : ' A fine specimen of the Scolopax griseus (a 

 young bird of the year) was killed in this vicinity during the 

 autumn, which is perhaps one of the best things in the bird way 

 that has occurred in this district for very many years.' It was 

 recorded in the following words : ' A specimen was shot on 

 RockclifF salt marsh, on Sept. 25, during a very high tide, 

 which covered the whole of the marsh, with the exception of a 

 few small elevated patches scattered here and there, on one of 

 which the bird was observed busily feeding, and picking up 

 insects, etc., with amazing rapidity. It proved to be a young 

 female of the year, and was in good condition ; the stomach 

 was filled with the elytra of several small coleopterous insects : 

 no other individual was seen.' 1 James Cooper was undoubtedly 

 the man who shot the bird. Local tradition maintains, no 

 doubt correctly, that it was killed on the upper part of the 

 1 Mag. Natural Hist., vol. ix. p. 186. 



