344 
FLIGHT OF WOODCOCKS. 
most respectable authority. A Cornish gentleman, sailing at 
a distance from land unusual for birds to be seen, discerned a 
bird high in the air, which, gradually descending, alighted on 
the deck, and proved to he a Woodcock. During a heavy 
gale, two others sought shelter on board a line-of-battle ship 
cruising in the Channel ; and a naval officer informed us, that 
after a stormy night, several leagues to the westward of the 
Land’s-End, when shaking the reefs out of the topsails, early 
in the morning, several Woodcocks w T ere discovered in the 
rigging. With these premises before us, we think the mys- 
tery is, if. not entirely removed, at least much lessened, and a 
first landing on the western shores of Ireland, and the Scilly 
Islands, fairly and easily accounted for ; the birds, naturally, 
as day approached, sinking downward to the nearest land. 
That their flight, too, is rapid to the last, is farther proved 
by many instances having occurred of their killing themselves 
by flying against the glass of the Eddystone Light-house. 
Of their speed, indeed, some estimation may be formed, by 
one which struck against the plate-glass of a light-house, on 
the coast of Ireland, and broke a pane cast for the place, of 
unusual strength, viz., from a to B ?), being more 
than three -eighths of an inch thick ; the blow was so 
violent, that in addition to the glass being broken, the bird 
was found dead, with its hreast-bone, and both wings also, 
smashed. Again, no less than five Woodcocks have killed 
themselves, in a similar manner, against the plate-glasses of 
the South- Stack Light-house, in Anglesey. 
There was a time when Woodcocks might be almost said 
to be as plentiful as Wood-Pigeons are now ; at least, they 
abounded to such a degree, that catching them was a regular 
trade : and so late as fifty years ago, they were sold at the 
moderate rate of from six to seven-pence a couple ; but, like 
Starlings, Wood-Pigeons, and several other birds, they have 
of late years diminished in numbers. 
As far as concerns Woodcocks, this, indeed, may easily he 
accounted for. In the first place, the demand, not for the 
full-grown birds merely, but for the eggs, has greatly increased 
in Sweden, where they are as highly esteemed, and therefore 
