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CAPT. S. R. DOUGLAS ON 



affording excellent sport : in exceptional years large bags have 

 been made, for instance, in January 1892, 92 and 98 cock were 

 shot on consecutive days ; the more usual bags, however, are 

 about 120 cock for two guns in a week's shooting. 



Woodcock have only comparatively recently nested regularly in 

 these parts, for, from information received from a former keeper 

 of Col. Ashley's, Mr. R. Bracken, who had been brought up in 

 this part of the country and who has several relatives keepers on 

 neighbouring estates, it appears quite certain that a woodcock's 

 nest was considered the greatest rarity before the year 1875. 

 Since that date they have become more and more numerous. On 

 Col. Ashley's property, and especially in respect of the principal 

 breeding-ground described below, woodcocks' nests were practically 

 unknown before the year 1900. 



The principal breeding-ground is a wood about 150 acres in 

 extent, situated about the centre of the property. This wood, 

 which was planted about 1 830, consists almost entirely of Scotch 

 and Maritime fir, and lies within half a mile of the sea. The soil 

 is very sandy, and the ground between the wood and the sea- 

 shore is occupied by sand dunes covered with bent grass. 



That part of the wood where most of the woodcock nest is 

 occupied by well-grown pine-trees, and is practically destitute of 

 any undergrowth, the ground between the tree-trunks being 

 thickly carpeted with moss and fallen pine-needles, with here and 

 there heaps of fallen sticks. 



The nests are most frequently placed at the foot of a well-grown 

 tree ; they consist of a saucer-shaped depression in the moss with 

 no more lining than a few pine-needles, and are often partly 

 shielded from view by some fallen dead wood. 



The usual number of eggs laid is four, but nests containing 

 five have been found. One egg in the clutch frequently fails to 

 hatch out. The average of 50 nests is now found every breeding- 

 season in this wood. 



The nesting-season commences in March, a nest with eggs 

 having been found as early as the fifth of this month, and 

 continues throughout the summer until the end of July or the 

 beginning of August ; however, most of the young are hatched 

 in the months of April, May, and the early part of June. 



The young birds grow very rapidly after being hatched out, 

 and within two or three days leave the locality of the nest, so 

 that the marking of the young birds has to be carried out very 

 soon after they are hatched. 



No definite proof of a woodcock raising two broods in the year 

 has been obtained, but all the keepers are of the opinion that this 

 at any rate occasionally happens. 



The young birds remain near the place of their birth until 

 about the middle of September. About this time, however, they 

 practically all disappear until the middle of October, when a 

 number of birds are again seen, and these appear to constitute the 

 regular winter inhabitants of the different coverts. 



