THE WOODCOCK. 313 
cold season, and Colonel St. John has shot numbers there, five 
one morning, out of a single small rose garden at Firuzabad. 
Captain Bishop informs me that in January 1873, whilst 
shooting near Baghdad in Turkish Mesopotamia, his party 
bagged five Woodcocks in the date groves skirting the town, so 
that here also they are probably pretty common, as they are 
likewise in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Palestine. 
To Lower Egypt it is arather rare straggler, but further west 
in Algeria and Morocco it appears to be more or less common 
during the winter. Curiously enough it isa permanent resident 
in the Canaries, Madeira, and the Azores. Excluding Iceland, 
it is met with at one season or another throughout Europe 
and the islands of the Mediterranean, mostly breeding in the 
north (though probably not within the Arctic Circle), but some 
few breeding in most countries north of the 45th degree of 
North Latitude. A straggler or two have undoubtedly occurred 
in the eastern portions of North America, and Coues thinks that 
such chance visitations are commoner than is usually supposed, 
but the Neartic region is clearly outside its normal range, 
IN THE Himalayas they begin to descend, earlier or later, in 
October, according to the season, and I have shot one at only 
about 7,000 feet elevation in the valley of the Sutlej as early as the 
8th of October. Outside the Himalayas, (as at the Nilgiris,) 
they appear earlier or later in November, and leave earlier or 
later in March, according to locality or season. 
But all do not migrate at the same time; on the Nilgiris 
fresh birds are continually dropping in at any rate throughout 
November and December, and this continued migration is also 
proved by the occurrence of specimens in the plains as late as 
the end of December. It is curious that in all the cases in 
which I have been able to ascertain the exact dates, birds 
killed in the plains of Upper India have been. obtained prior 
to the 3rd of January, thus apparently proving that it is only 
on their southward journey, and not on the return trip, that they 
linger by the way. 
Whether all the birds visiting the Empire south of the 
Himalayas are natives of those mountains, or whethera portion 
are migrants from more northern regions, is a problem that has yet 
perhaps to be solved; although, for reasons to be explained 
further on, I do not believe in many foreign birds reaching us. 
Cover and running water are what in India the Woodcock 
most affects ; you may find them alike in the middle of deep 
forest or thick ringal jungle near the banks of some rushing 
hill streamlet, foaming and sparkling in its rocky bed, 
where, save a few tiny velvety corners, there seems no single 
spot in the neighbourhood where they can possibly feed ; 
and again in clumps of low scrub ina treeless opening, where 
QI 
