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BOOK NOTICE. 



Chapters v to xiii, by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, on Woodcock, 

 Snipe, and Wild-fowl generally, will be read with much interest by 

 the naturalist, as they are written by a specialist, who, by long 

 experience and much observation, has made himself thoroughly 

 acquainted with the life-history and habits of the birds which fre- 

 quent the mere and marsh and sea-coast. These chapters, indeed, 

 contain as much Natural History as they do other matter pertaining 

 to sport. A short description is given by the author under the head 

 of separate species, of the Geese, Swans, Ducks, Divers, Grebes, and 

 Waders, which are known to occur in the British Isles, sufficient for 

 their identification. The Hst includes also many of those rarest wan- 

 derers, which from time to time have turned up on these islands, and 

 thus obtained an entrance into the British hst, such as the American 

 Widgeon, Red-crested Pochard, Ferruginous Duck, Buffel-headed 

 Duck, Steller's Western Duck, Surf Scoter, and the Hooded Merganser, 

 also several rare Waders, with particulars of their natural haunts, and 

 the circumstances and number of their occurrences on our shores. 



The Woodcock breeds in England much more commonly than it 

 did, and there are now few, if any, counties in which it has not been 

 recorded as nesting. It is a well-established fact that these home-bred 

 birds do not remain to winter in the localities where they have been 

 brought up. They leave about the last week in August and early in 

 September, and their place is taken by foreign birds which arrive in 

 October and November, with great regularity to the same favourite 

 coverts and spots.* 



From the accounts which have been handed down by old sports- 

 men. Woodcocks are much scarcer now than formerly. Sir Ralph 

 Payne-Gallwey thinks this may to some extent be due to the increased 

 number of shooters, and the more rapid means of firing with breech- 

 loaders. The custom of shooting down Woodcock on their first 

 arrival in an exhausted condition on the east coast is greatly to be 

 deprecated. It is not uncommon for sixty to a hundred to be shot 

 in a very limited locality ; when we consider this, and the enormous 

 and wholesale slaughter of these poor birds during a season of severe 

 frost by the peasants in Ireland, we cease to be surprised at the 

 gradually diminishing numbers which come to us. Considering the 

 persistence with which they are followed up by shooters, we have 

 often been surprised that any are left to return northward in the spring. 



* The writer knows an oak spinney of about five acres, near the east coast, 

 which for the last thirty years has almost invariably held a couple of cock. These 

 in the course of the season have generally been shot, yet the next autumn another 

 couple have taken their place. The conditions of the locality would appear to 



be favourable to the support of two Woodcock and no more. 



Naturalist, 



