THE COVERTS 275 



the powder so leisurely that sea-fowl had time to dive 

 to the flash. The mystery was as to how the cocks 

 were ever dropped, and we fancy that when they did 

 come down, luck had a good deal to do with it. Let a 

 woodcock get well away, and he will go winding and 

 twisting through the tree-tops like the capercailzie, for 

 both birds are well served by their instinct, and can 

 take uncommonly good care of themselves. You must 

 take a cock when you can, as you snap at a rabbit, and 

 if you shoot quick, as he generally rises in a glade or 

 an opening, the shot should be easy enough, though 

 the charge goes rather ball-like. With their congener 

 the snipe, by the way, it is different. He gets up in 

 the open, and if you coolly wait, after the preliminary 

 jerkings to right and left, which are the eccentric pro- 

 logue to a steadier performance, he usually shoots out 

 straight before beginning to soar. 



It is seldom one finds such roe shooting as in the 

 circumstances we have sketched, but the roe is always a 

 great addition to the battue in the North. A chartered 

 denizen of the wastes and woods, he seeks the deepest 

 solitudes of extensive plantations. Hence he is scarcely 

 the ornament of the landscape he ought to be, for he 

 rarely shows. Strolling quietly about with the gun in 

 the woodland glades, you may occasionally catch the 

 gleam of a white stern vanishing behind a tree trunk. 

 Few creatures are more graceful, and very few more 

 destructive. The roe steals out to feed at night or in 

 the early morning, and there is no prettier sight, except 

 to the unfortunate farmer, than a family party in the 



