It has been the belief that the woodcock has two broods in the year, because young ones have been found, just hatched, in the month of August; but I think the cause of the supposition is this,—that as woodcock shooting, at flight time, continues till late in the summer, some of the males may have been shot, and a new pair may have been formed later than usual. If in shooting you meet with a brood of woodcocks, and the young ones cannot fly, the old bird takes the young ones separately between her feet, and flies from the dogs with a moaning cry.
The woodcock, as it is well known, is a bird of passage. It usually took its departure from Sweden towards the end of October or beginning of November, and did not return until the approach of spring. Mr. Grieff says, he never knew the woodcock to make his appearance in the vicinity of Stockholm until the 6th of April, which about tallies with the time of their leaving our shores.
Woodcocks were exceedingly scarce in the vicinity of Stfirn, which was also the case in all other parts of Scandinavia that I ever visited. This may be supposed when I mention that I never killed more than three in any one day during my stay in the north of Europe. Indeed I never saw more than seven or eight of those birds in the course of a day’s shooting, and very generally not one-fourth part so many. During the woodcock’s periodical migrations, however, for during the winter not one of them remains in Scandinavia, they are occasionally, as it is said, to be met with in considerable numbers on the western coasts of Sweden and Norway.
As it is from the countries of which I am now speaking our covers are supposed to be supplied with woodcocks, it may seem extraordinary that those birds should there be so scarce as I have just described, and so plentiful in places with us. This, however, is easily explained, when we consider, that on their breeding grounds, extending over the whole of the north of Europe, there is probably a thousand times as much wood as in the United Kingdom; and, consequently, when they come to us, and are concentrated, if I may use the term, into our small covers, they naturally make a very great show.
It is generally said that woodcocks are less plentiful in Great Britain than formerly. This I have heard attributed to the Scandinavians eating the eggs of those birds. If, however, persons who entertain this opinion were to see the almost boundless northern forests, they would probably think with me, that if the whole of the scanty population of that part of the world were to go out for the purpose, they would not be able to explore the hundredth part of the woods in the course of a year, and consequently they could not take or destroy any considerable number of eggs.
In 1796, Mr. Yea, of Swansea, killed one hundred couple of woodcocks in one season. In Ireland, the Earl of Claremont shot half as many in a day, but then it should be premised, that such was the abundance of these birds, as to be sold in some parts (for instance, near Ballyshannon, in the County of Donegal) for one penny each, and the expense of powder and shot.