24 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
through the fields, as the light is veered around so as 
to cover the ground within its range, the woodcock can 
be seen squatting in his feeding place. 
“The darker the night the better; a drizzly night 
is the best of all. On starlight nights it is not easy 
to get close enough to kill them with a long cane, which 
the darkeys frequently use, or even to shoot them with 
squib loads, but on dark, drizzly nights one can almost 
catch them with the hands before they become accus- 
tomed to the light, which temporarily dazzles them. 
The birds are usually found in pairs—unless one has 
been killed—and squatting from three to six feet apart, 
and not infrequently, if the night be very dark, the 
hunter can kill both before flight. 
“A muzzleloader is preferred on account of the 
cheapness of the ammunition. The birds are rarely 
ever shot at more than thirty feet and frequently under 
ten feet. For this reason squib loads are used. An or- 
dinary charge of black powder is divided into two 
loads, a wad run down on it, and the charge of No. 8 
shot is about what a man can hold between his thumb 
and fore finger, say fifteen or twenty pellets; more 
would tear the birds. 
“The woodcock rarely spends over sixty to seventy 
days in Louisiana, but during this period many thou- 
sands were killed before the enactment of prohibitory 
laws, not only by the colored man, but by the whites 
as well, in the manner mentioned. No doubt your 
sportsmen critics will denounce the method, and, under 
any circumstances other than those which actually exist 
