believes, generally spawns late in the winter, it may sometimes meet with trout spawning at the same time. He has seen salmon and trout in the Tweed in a similar state of maturity at the same period; and, in 1816, he remembers, that he took large female salmon, that had the period of parturition protracted as late as March. (_On the scolaphax, page 124._) I shall say a few words on the congeners of this bird (the solitary snipe,) and on the three varieties so much better known in Europe. The woodcock feeds indiscriminately upon earthworms, small beetles, and various kinds of larvæ, and its stomach sometimes contains seeds, which I suspect have been taken up in boring amongst the excrements of cattle; yet the stomach of this bird has something of the gizzard character, though not so much as that of the land-rail, which I have found half filled with seeds of grasses, and even containing corn, mixed with may-bugs, earth-worms, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. The woodcock, I believe, breeds habitually only in high northern latitudes, yet there are woods in England, particularly one in Sussex, near the borders of Hampshire, in which one or two couple of these birds, it is said, may always be found in summer. I suspect these woodcocks are from the offspring of birds which had paired for their passage, but being detained by an accident happening to one of them, staid and raised a young brood in England, and the young ones probably had their instincts altered by the accidents of their being born in England, and being in a place well supplied with food. It is not improbable, that they likewise raised young ones, and that the habit of staying has become hereditary. There can be no doubt, that woodcocks are very constant to their local attachments; woodcocks, that have been preserved in a particular wood for a winter, always return to it, if possible, the next season. Many woodcocks breed in Norway and Sweden in the great, extensive, and moist pine woods, filled with bogs and morasses, which cover these wild countries, but probably a still greater number breed further north, in Lapland, Finland, Russia, and Siberia. It is I believe a fable, that they ever raise their young habitually in the high Alpine or mountainous countries of the central or southern parts of Europe. These countries indeed in summer are very little fitted for their feeding; they cannot bore where it is either dry or frosty, and the glacier, as well as the arid sand or rock, are equally unfitted for their haunts. They leave the north with the first frost, and travel slowly south till they come to their accustomed winter quarters; they do not usually make a quick voyage, but fly from wood to wood, reposing and feeding on their journey: they prefer for their haunts, woods near marshes or morasses; they hide themselves under thick bushes in the day, and fly abroad to feed in the dusk of the evening. A laurel, or a holly-bush, is a