WOODCOCK. 283 
are the result of repeated visits to the most likely 
spots, between October and March. By the same 
means, at Hempstead, near Holt, a very favourite resort 
in this county, from one hundred to one hundred and 
fifty cocks have been killed in one year, and yet 
comparatively few in other seasons, when the same 
coverts have been entered only for battue purposes. 
In such woods, also, the sportsman, who walks with 
the beaters and takes his chance in the “high fell” 
will bag more cocks to his own gun, ifa good “ snap ”’ 
shot, than all the rest of the party, though posted 
in convenient drives or other openings. 
With the woodcock also, as with the snipe, there 
seems to be a strange partiality for certain localities. 
There are few sportsmen who cannot re-call some 
favoured spot where, year after year, a woodcock was 
to be found in due season, and whose place, if killed, was 
almost sure to be taken by another. Mr. J. H. Gurney 
tells me that he remembers, many years ago, when the 
late Rev. Robert Hankinson occupied Bilney Hall, near 
Lynn, being told that there was a remarkable place of 
this kind on the grounds attached to that house. The 
attraction in such cases being, no doubt, some peculiar 
adaptability of the aspect, soil, and leafy shelter.* 
Some years are certainly noticeable for the scarcity 
of woodcocks as others for their abundance; but of the 
latter, the most remarkable of late have been the 
autumns of 1852 and 1858, and the last three or four 
seasons have been all more or less favourable. In 
the memorable “flood year” (1852), amongst other 
* Sir Humphrey Davy (“ Salmonia,” p. 332, 2nd edit.) remarks, 
“A laurel or a holly bush is a favourite place for their repose: 
the thick varnished leaves of these trees prevent the radiation of 
heat from the soil, and they are less affected by the refrigerating 
influence of a clear sky; so that they afford a warm seat for the 
wooccock.” 
202 
