258 NATURAL HISTORY 



dote the rector of Trotten at that time has 

 often told to a near relation of mine ; and, 

 to the best of my remembrance, the collar 

 was in the possession of the rector. 



At present I do not know any body near 

 the sea-side that will take the trouble to 

 remark at what time of the moon wood- 

 cocks first come : if I lived near the sea 

 myself I would soon tell you more of the 

 matter. One thing I used to observe when 

 I was a sportsman, that there were times 

 in which woodcocks were so sluggish and 

 sleepy that they would drop again when 

 flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at 

 the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at 

 them : whether this strange laziness was 

 the effect of a recent fatiguing journey 1 

 shall not presume to say. 



Nightingales not only never reach North" 

 vmberland and Scotland, but also as I have 

 been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall, 

 In those two last counties we cannot attri- 

 bute the failure of them to the want of 

 warmth : the defect in the west is rather a 

 presumptive argument that these birds 



