WOODCOCK SHOOTING 317 
what could be established by the most careful train- 
ing. The spaniel is but little used in the United States 
for woodcock shooting, or any other kind of shooting, 
for that matter, though there is no doubt but they could 
be made eminently useful in field sport. 
In Louisiana, and other sections of the South, where 
the woodcock seeks a clime more genial than that of 
a northern winter, the conditions of shooting change 
almost entirely. In sections at certain times, gener- 
ally in the last of December and the fore part of Janu- 
ary, they may be found in great numbers, and a bag 
of twenty, thirty or forty in a day is not then consid- 
ered remarkable. They frequent the switch-cane bot- 
toms, or woods in the timbered prairie, in which the 
heavy fall rains have softened the ground, and where 
abundance of food can be found. Their stay in the 
South is very short, for they start North immediately 
on the lessening of the winter cold—after a stay of not 
more than a few weeks—their coming and going then 
being quite as silent and secret as in the North. They 
are then killed in great numbers, both day and night, 
by market shooters, and shipped to the home and dis- 
tant markets. They have their choice feeding grounds 
even in that land of abundance, and skill, diligent ef- 
fort and knowledge of habitat are quite as essential to 
success in the southern winter shooting as in the less 
bountiful shooting of the North in summer and fall. 
So scarce has the woodcock been for the last dozen 
years that some young gunners have never seen one, 
and know them only from books. Happily, for the 
