woods and plantations which it frequents. It is an early
breeder, frequently having young ones in the middle of April.
The eggs do not vary much, except in contour. They have
none of the pear-shaped character which distinguishes those
of all the allied species ; on the contrary, they are sometimes
more remarkable for the roundness of their form. They are
four in number.
Yarrell again remarks :—"They (the nests) were all in dry
warm situations, amongst dead grass and leaves, without any
attempt at concealment. The nest sent was wholly composed
of dead leaves, chiefly of the common fern, loosely laid
together, and without any lining.
" It would, however, be more proper to say beds than nests ;
for, like those of the Plover, they are merely slight hollows
formed by the nestling of the birds in dry soft spots, or on
the fallen leaves."
Mr. C. St. John obtained a nest of the Woodcock in Scotland
as early as the 9th of March, and he says that there they
breed again in July and August. Anderson got his nest, eggs
hard set, on the 2nd of July, and was of opinion that this
was a first laying and that the hen would soon have laid again.
" The ovarium of my specimen contained three impregnated
eggs, the largest being about the size of an ordinary pill, so
that the present brood would hardly have been able to shift
for themselves before the mother would be incubating again ;
it is evident, therefore, that in India, as in Europe, the Woodcock
has a double brood."
But such eggs are often found in birds that do not lay a
second time normally, a mere natural reserve to provide against
the contingencies of the destruction of the first clutch, and
which, if the first brood be reared, are never matured, but
passed in an incipient form. And I am by no means certain that
Woodcock any where, normally, have and rear a double brood,
and I very much doubt their doing this in the Himalayas.
The eggs arc always four in number. They are typically
very broad ovals, but generally slightly compressed near the small
end ; the ground colour varies from pale yellowish white,
through various shades of buff and buffy stone colour, to a reddish
cafe an hut. The markings, never very densely set, and at
times very sparse, consist of different shades of brown, brownish
yellow and brownish red on the one hand, and greys, from
sepia to purple on the other. The former occur in moderate-sized
blotches, spots and specks, as primary markings. Often these
arc more numerous in a cap or zone about the large end.
Occasionally not a single blotch or spot is one-tenth of an
inch in diameter, and nine out of ten arc little more than
specks ; but in other eggs many of the blotches, especially about
the large end, are a quarter of an inch and upwards in length.
The greys, pinkish, lavender, sepia occur as small clouds, spots
and smears, secondary sub-surface-looking markings, rarely
either large or thickly set, except when amongst the blotches
of a zone or cap, when the egg exhibits such.
The eggs vary a great deal in size and shape, some being much
more round than others—indeed, almost spherical, the major axis
only exceeding the minor by one-eighth, and others comparatively
elongated, the major axis exceeding the minor by nearly onefourth.
A large series, chiefly Northern European, vary from 1*5 to
1 '8 in length, and from 1*3 to 1*5 in breadth. I have no Himalayan
eggs, but I suspect that, like the birds, they would average
smaller than European specimens.
ACCORDING TO European writers, age for age, the females are
larger than the males, and the youngest birds have the shortest
bills ; the latter is undoubted, A s to the former, my measurements
do not establish any constant difference between the
sexes. I have the exact measurements recorded in the flesh
of over fifty Indian-killed specimens, carefully noted by Hodgson,
Scully, C. H. T. Marshall, Butler and myself; and these, I
think, show our birds to be smaller than European ones, and
they show absolutely no constant difference in the size of the
sexes. The followingis an abstract of all these measurements :—
Length, 13 to I5"0; expanse, 23*0 to 25*5 ; wing, yz to 8-o;
tail from vent, 3-0 to 3-85 ; tarsus, 135 to 1*57 ; bill from gape,
2"8 to 33 ; weight, 7 ozs. to 12-5 ozs.
In not one out of 5 3 birds has the wing exceeded 8 inches. In
my only Yarkand specimen it is 8'5, and it exceeds 8 inches in
every one of five English specimens.
In only five out of 53 birds has the weight exceeded 10 ozs.,
and these five the weights were—10*5, 11-5, i2'o, 120, and 12-5
ozs. Out of 53ja couple shot during three days, at the late Mr.
O'Lcary's place, at Cool Mountain,* near the Inchigcela Lakes,
between Macroom and Bantry (South-West Ireland), 27 weighed
between r2and 14 ozs., six weighed between 14 and 15 ozs., and
one between 15 and 16 ozs. Dresser again says that, in alarge scries
shot between 1S60 and 1870 at Gartincaber in Perthshire, most
of the birds varied in weight between 11 and 12 ozs. Our 53
birds weighed—between 7 and 8 ozs., fourteen—between 8 and
9 ozs., eighteen—9 and 10 ozs., sixteen—above 10 ozs., five.
There is an undoubted instance on record of a Woodcock in
England weighing 27 ozs.
Our only Yarkand bird has the wing 8*5, and it seems to me
therefore, probable, that if India was visited by many Central
* People rave about the cock-shooting on the coast opposite to Corfu, and
thirty to forty years ago it used to be, and, for all I know still is, very fine; but
every bit as good cock-shooting was to be had, as late at any rate as iS6t, at Eve
Leary in county " Katk" !
R I