160 
WOODCOCKS AND SNIPES. 
Woodcock genus, is able to transport its young, in 
case of danger, we have already shown * ; and future 
observers may possibly bear equally satisfactory testi- 
monies to a similar power in the Woodcock. 
It remains to make a few remarks on the migra- 
tion of Woodcocks, which is attended with more 
mystery than that of most other birds. We shall 
endeavour briefly to state the chief points for con- 
sideration. First, we have every reason to believe 
that the greater proportion, on leaving this country 
in March, retire to the wild solitudes of Norway or 
Sweden. Secondly, that on re-appearing in England, 
in October, they are, for the most part, poor and 
weak. Thirdly, that instead of being first seen on the 
eastern coasts, they are, for the most part, known to 
land on the western shores of Ireland, and, almost in 
flocks, on the Scilly Islands, twenty miles to the west- 
ward of the LamTs-End, Cornwall, quite exhausted. 
Now, on the supposition that the major part are 
bred in Norway and Sweden, if we examine a map, 
it will be evident that they ought naturally to alight 
on the eastern shores, as the nearest points. Their 
weak, lean, and exhausted state, however, supposing 
it to arise from fatigue, implies a far longer, and 
more continued flight, than that from Norway, which, 
even supposing that they prefer, for some unknown 
cause, the western to the eastern shores of our island 
for their first appearance, is quite a trifling affair for 
most birds ; the distance, in a straight line, from the 
nearest point of JSTorway to the Land’s-End, being 
not more than a seven or eight hours’ journey for a 
bird, whose rapidity of flight, when once fairly on 
* Page 152. 
