70 WING-SHOOTING. 



the oTOund we found the covert billed and splashed all 

 over, but killed only two birds. The night before was 

 very cold, and the moon was in the full. Had the 

 weather been mild, and had it remained so for a time, a 

 portion of the birds probably would have remained in 

 that locality for a few days, as I have killed a round 

 dozen on the first, and two-and-half couple so late as the 

 fifth of November, when the moon was in the full, as 

 early as the twenty-fourth of October ; but the weather 

 was a sort of hazy, sleepy, smoky weather that is called 

 Indian Summer. Perhaps these remai'ks may seem at 

 variance with some that I have made before ; but what I 

 wish to impress on the reader is not only the habits of 

 the cock generally, but also their occasional variance from 

 them. Once an old shooter routed me out of bed at mid- 

 night, and asked me to accompany him in the morning as 

 he had found a large number at dusk in a cornfield, and 

 he had been unable to bag a single bird after firing up- 

 wards of a dozen shots. We got there about twelve 

 o'clock the following day, but found only seven birds. 

 The ground w^as bored and whitewashed all over, showing- 

 evidence of a larofe number. His idea was that the birds 

 had not left the country, as the moon lacked two days of 

 being in the full, and he proposed that we should proceed 



