THE WOODCOCK. 
251 
111 1837, three nests were found at Tolly more, the first early in the 
month of April, when it was surrounded with snow ; they were all 
sheltered by young trees, and one of them within twenty yards of where 
a nest had been the preceding year : in each were four eggs, all of 
which were productive, the young appearing in April. The nests 
observed here to this time have, in every instance, been in slight hollows 
of the ground, with a little grass or dead leaves in the bottom, for 
lining. To withdraw attention from one of these nests when con- 
taining young, the parent tumbled about as if wounded, thus feigning 
to a greater extent than the keeper had ever before witnessed in any 
species of bird ; at the same time she gave utterance to a note distinct 
from those before mentioned ; as expressed to me, “ screeching with 
rage — when disturbed during incubation, they merely fluttered ofl‘ 
the eggs, and alighted at a short distance. The young birds are said 
to be beautiful in the down, being mottled with black where their 
parents are so, and cream-coloured where the latter are brown. About 
the second week of June, a fourth brood was seen, of which the nest 
was not found. 
In 1838, one nest, containing four eggs (the ordinary number), was 
observed in the park ; the young appeared in April : by the middle of 
which month they have generally come out here.* Long after the 
general departure of the woodcocks for the north this year, the game- 
keeper saw what he believed to be five distinct brace of these birds in 
one portion of the park, and considered that they were more numerous 
than in any previous summer. The nests were not discovered as usual, 
in consequence of boys, by whom they were all found on former occa- 
sions, not having been employed in the young plantations. Daily 
throughout the year, the keeper now either sees or hears woodcocks 
marked during the month of December 1848, that these birds had a regular line of 
flight, his garden being the place over which they flew, either singly or two in com- 
pany. The time was at dusk, about half-past fom’ o’clock, p. m. A number of shots 
were fired at them (though ineffectually) by his servant ; but they, nevertheless, con- 
tinued to take the same course daily. 
* In the ninth volume of Loudon’s ‘ Magazine of Natural History,’ p. 543, it is 
stated of three nests found in a wood near Derby, that the young were hatched in the 
month of April. In vol. i. (Second Series) of the same work, it is remarked, in a 
notice of its breeding in Ross-shire, that the woodcock “ hatches early, often at the 
latter end of March, but generally by the first week of April.” On the 10th of the 
latter month, the writer of the communication to the Magazine, saw woodcocks 
sitting on their nests, one of which contained eggs. 
