386 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
in autumn "* : but it should be noted that nearly as many- 
were shot very far afield from their birth-places, and that 
the majority of the birds thus marked could never be traced. 
The question how far our home-bred birds are migratory, is 
the basis of dispute whether our County Council " Order," 
above referred to, has been advisable or otherwise. Even 
if our home-bred birds do emigrate in September or 
October, it is presumable that those birds which have 
been protected under the new provisions of our " Order," 
will, if they escape destruction further south, return 
in correspondingly greater numbers in the following 
spring, and so increase our stock of nesting Wood- 
cock. Could the " Order " be more generally adopted, 
instead of being in force only in Wigtownshire, Kirkcudbright- 
shire, Dumfriesshire, and a few Irish counties, I fancy it 
would receive less comment. At present there exists a 
disagreeable feeling that we in Dumfriesshire are rearing 
Woodcock for other people to shoot, and however righteous 
this may be, it is not pleasant. In Scandinavia and Russia 
the Woodcock breeds abundantly and it is probably from 
parts of these countries that our immigrants, in some seasons 
more numerous than in others, visit us from October on- 
wards. A return emigration takes place late in February or 
March, but as the species is nowadays seen with us in every 
month of the year, it is impossible to record early or late arrivals 
or departures. In the severe winter of 1878-1879, numbers 
of Woodcock were " crowded down " to Dumfriesshire, and 
many were then seen on the sea-shore, a habitat seldom fre- 
quented in this county except during seasons of intense frost. 
Large bags of Woodcock are not often made locally, 
though there are many places where from fifteen to 
twenty may be obtained in a day ; the best bag I have 
heard of is fifty-two, made during a day's covert-shooting 
at Langholm on December 15th, 1908.t 
The sex of Woodcock cannot be determined by the plumage, 
* Man. Brit. Birds, 1899, p. 569. 
t Lord Henry Scott, in litt.y December 26th, 1908. 
