BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 239 



A large part of this shooting is done by northerners, who 

 never know when they have enough, and southern market 

 hunters, black and white, who shoot mainly for the northern 

 markets. If w^e of the north who prate about the great slaugh- 

 ter of Woodcock in the south would close our markets effect- 

 ively against these southern birds, and uphold the efforts 

 of those who are trying to better the laws of the southern 

 States, southern shooting might be restricted within reasonable 

 limits. Ever since the civil war we have been inclined to blame 

 the south unjustly for both her deficiencies and our own. 

 It is true that in Audubon's time, and for many years after- 

 ward, many Woodcock were killed in Louisiana by both negroes 

 and whites. " Firelighting " was the usual method, but 

 Louisiana now has better game laws and better enforcement 

 than in the past. 



Mr. I. N. De Haven of Ardmore, Pa., writes me that 

 Woodcock are killed in great numbers near Cape Charles, Va. 

 If there is a heavy snowstorm in December a gunner will get 

 from four to seven dozen in a few hours. "The shooting," he 

 says, "sounds like a fourth of July to us out on the bay shooting 

 ducks. They are shipped to New York and Boston.'' Are we 

 enforcing our non-sale laws in the north.'* 



The northern Woodcock are hardy birds and do not go 

 very far south unless forced to do so by the freezing up of their 

 feeding grounds. A sudden freeze in the south deprives them 

 of food, and if this is followed by a severe snowstorm they are 

 obliged to seek w^armer quarters or perish. Great flights 

 appear in the south at such times, and many birds are starved 

 or frozen. Such a catastrophe occurred in 189^2, another in 

 1895 and still another in 1899. Wayne records that on 

 February 13 and 11, 1899, countless thousands of Woodcock 

 came to the region about Mount Pleasant, S. C. Tens of 

 thousands, he says, were killed by would-be sportsmen and 

 thousands died of starvation and cold. ]Most of them were 

 much emaciated and were unable to withstand the cold. One 

 man killed four hundred in a few hours. ^ Mr. James Henry 

 Rice, Jr., secretary of the Audubon Society of South Carolina, 



1 Wayne, Arthur T.: Auk, 1899, p. 197. 



