Tall Tickseed. _Coreopsis procosa._
Dedicated to _St. Frideswide_.
~October 20.~
_St. Artemius_, A. D. 362. _St. Barsabias_, Abbot, and others, A. D.
342. _St. Zenobius_, Bp. _St. Sindulphus_, or _St. Sendou_, 7th Cent.
_St. Adian_, Bp. of Mayo, A. D. 768.
_Migration of Birds._
Woodcocks have now arrived. In the autumn and setting in of winter they
keep dropping in from the Baltic singly, or in pairs, till December.
They instinctively land in the night, or in dark misty weather, for they
are never seen to arrive, but are frequently discovered the next morning
in any ditch which affords them shelter, after the extraordinary fatigue
occasioned by the adverse gales which they often have to encounter in
their aërial voyage. They do not remain near the shores longer than a
day, when they are sufficiently recruited to proceed inland, and they
visit the very same haunts which they left the preceding season. In
temperate weather they retire to mossy moors, and high bleak mountainous
parts; but as soon as the frost sets in, and the snows begin to fall,
they seek lower and warmer situations, with boggy grounds and springs,
and little oozing mossy rills, which are rarely frozen, where they
shelter in close bushes of holly and furze, and the brakes of woody
glens, or in dells which are covered with underwood: here they remain
concealed during the day, and remove to different haunts and feed only
in the night. From the beginning of March to the end of that month, or
sometimes to the middle of April, they all keep drawing towards the
coasts, and avail themselves of the first fair wind to return to their
native woods.--The snipe, _scolopax gallinago_, also comes now, and
inhabits similar situations. It is migratory, and met with in all
countries: like the woodcock, it shuns the extremes of heat and cold, by
keeping upon the bleak moors in summer, and seeking the shelter of the
valleys in winter. In unfrozen boggy places, runners from springs, or
any open streamlets of water, they are often found in considerable
numbers.[359]
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