OF CORNWALL. 245 
Ducks of all kinds, the true wild-duck breeding in the marfh be- 
twixt Penzance and Marazion ; widgeon, teal, woodcock, fnipe, 
&c. The fhell-drake (Tadorna BelloniiJ is rare, but in the hard 
winter 1739, I had one brought me exactly aniwering the de- 
fcription of Ray’s Willughby, page 363, Tab. lxxi. 
Of the common periodical or migratory birds, “ the fwallows in Migratory, 
the winter are found in the weftern parts of Cornwall, fitting in 
old deep tin- works and holes of the fea-cliffs,” fays Mr. Carew, page 
26. This is a circumftance queftioried by fome Naturalifts, and 
as confidently afterted by others ; the truth is, when the winter 
comes on, and the air is no longer replete with the flies and infedts 
which are the fwallow’s proper food, this bird difappears ; fome per- 
haps may pals into other climates, or die, and others remain in a 
torpid ftate in private caves, fome under water, and fome above. 
The red-wing or wind-thrufh, in Cornwall called the winnard, and 
fieldfare, are moft common when there is moll cold, in gentle 
winters few or none. The Royfton crow, with the black bill, head 
and wings black with a glofly blue, the breaft, belly, back, and 
neck cinereous grey, fhafts of the feathers blackifh, continues with 
us from Odtober to March, but generally on the fea-fhore, and 
betwixt Penzance and Marazion, fond of the produdts of the beach, 
though ufually reckoned granivorous. 
Woodcocks are reckoned birds of paflage, but they do not 
always leave the country to which they occafionally refort : Some 
gentlemen, hunting in the neighbourhood of Penzance, in the fum- 
mer-time 17 55, flufhed a woodcock; furprifed at feeing fuch a 
winter bird at that feafon of the year, they haftened to the bufh, 
and there found a neft with two eggs in it : a gentleman, more 
curious than the reft, carried the eggs home ; and one being acci- 
dentally broke, the body of a young woodcock appeared, and en- 
couraged him to put the other egg under a pigeon, and in a few 
days a living bird was difcovered in it with its feathers on, in fhape 
and fize as in Plate xxiv. Fig. xii. page 239. Snipes alfo, young 
and from the neft, are often flufhed on Bodman downs. 
As it is my defign in this hiftory to reprefent whatever is rare and Pvare birds, 
worthy notice, as well as what has not been thoroughly delcribed by 
others, I fhall not omit an uncommon bird catched at Moufnole, and 
brought to me Sept. 23, 1755 ; the great noife it kept in the night, 
the fmallnefs of its bill, the difproportioned largenefs of the mouth, 
and the unufual fhortnefs of the legs, made me take the following 
meafurements : From the point of the bill to the extremity of the 
tail, ten inches; from the tips of the wings extended, one foot 
nine ; its bill flattifli, thin, and only three tenths of an inch long, 
fomewhat curved ; the fpread of its mouth very large, being two 
R r r inches 
