SCOLOPACIDzE — THE SNIPE FAMILY — SCOLOPAX. 
181 
marks, on each side of the rusty black-spotted area. Rump lighter cinnamon-rusty, narrowly 
barred with dusky ; upper tail-coverts largely tipped with light gray. Tail-feathers black, ser- 
rated along the outer edge with rusty, and widely tipped with light gray. Forehead and anterior 
part of the crown, brownish gray ; posterior part of the crown and whole occiput, black, crossed 
by four transverse narrow bands of light rusty, or ochraeeous — two through the black, the other 
two hounding it anteriorly and posteriorly. A wide loral stripe of blackish brown, running from 
the rictus to the eye. Chin white. Lower parts in general pale fulvous grayish (nearly white 
medially), marked with irregular transverse bars of dark brown. Quills dusky, their outer webs 
marked with triangular spots of light cinnamon, arranged so as to form transverse bands ; outer 
web of exterior quill widely edged with pure white. Bill and feet light horn-color, the former 
blackish at the end. Downy Young : General hue delicate rusty ochraeeous, the upper surface 
marked with large blotch -like areas of deep rusty, these being arranged as follows : an isolated, 
somewhat wedge-shaped, spot occupying the middle of the forehead ; a longitudinal stripe down 
the middle of the rump ; a longitudinal patch covering the occiput and nape, and sending out two 
lateral branches, the first from the upper part to the eye, the second from the lower part across the 
neck, where continued, more or less interruptedly, across the jugulum ; a dark chestnut (nearly 
black) stripe from the bill to the eye. The other blotches covering the back, part of the wings, 
and the anal region. 
Wing, nearly 8.00 ; culmen, about 3.00-3.85; tarsus, 1.50 ; middle toe, 1.30. 
The European Woodcock is of occasional and accidental occurrence in North 
America, and its appearance quite possibly is more frequent than we are aware of. 
It is referred to, in one instance, in the “ Ibis,” as having been included in the New- 
foundland collection of mounted birds in the Exposition of 1SG7. 
In Lewis’s “ American Sportsman ” (p. 158), under the heading “ Woodcock,” refer- 
ence is made in a footnote to a specimen of a Woodcock sent, about 1860, to Mr. G. 
D. Wetherill, which weighed fourteen ounces. When received, however, it was too 
far gone to be preserved ; but it was, without much doubt, a bird of this species. 
Mr. George 1ST. Lawrence cites another similar instance, where a friend of his shot, 
near Newport, R. I., a large Woodcock, which weighed fourteen ounces ; unfortu- 
nately it was not preserved. The fact that our Woodcock rarely reaches and never 
exceeds nine ounces, while the usual weight of the European is fourteen, naturally 
suggests that in both instances the specimens were examples of the rusticula. 
- We are not, however, restricted to probabilities merely for our evidence of the 
actual occurrence of this species within our limits. Mr. Lawrence has in his collec- 
tion the skin of a European Woodcock purchased in the Washington Market of New 
York, Dec. 6, 1859. It had been brought there with a lot of Quail, oil board the boat 
from Shrewsbury, N. J. 
This species appears to be widely distributed over Europe and the western portions 
of Asia. It resorts in summer to northern regions for purposes of reproduction, and 
in its migrations visits a wide extent of territory. 
A few breed in Great Britain, in various parts of the islands, but a large proportion 
seen there are migrants from more northern regions. They breed throughout Den- 
mark, Norway, Sweden, Lapland, and Northern Russia, arriving in Scandinavia at 
the latter end of March or the beginning of April, when they are found on the coast 
in considerable numbers, but usually depart for the interior on the prevalence of 
westerly winds. They are common in Western Lapland beyond the Arctic Circle, 
and are generally and widely dispersed ; but are nowhere numerous. The pine-forests 
are their places of resort in summer. They are not found in Southern Germany in 
the summer, and breed no farther south than Silesia, and thence north ware). 
This is a celebrated game-bird in Europe, and especially in Great Britain and Ire- 
land, where, in their fall migrations, the Woodcock arrive in great numbers, and are 
