COCK SHOOTING. 141 



take every chance sportsman into their confidence. In 

 cock shooting especially a good knowledge of the ground is 

 requisite. Certain covers hold cock year after year, while 

 other covers equally likely looking never hold a bird. 

 Little information as regards cock and snipe can be 

 obtained from the farmers, who know all the varieties of 

 the several families of Scolopacidse, Tringidse, Chara- 

 driadse, &c., by the one name " snipes." The newly arrived 

 sportsman who has a soul above sandpipers and abhors 

 turnstones, &c., is at the mercy of every boy he meets, 

 and after several weary tramps and wasted days he 

 loathes the very name of " snipes," and learns that he 

 must expect no further assistance in finding the long bills 

 than is afforded him by his own eye and his dog's good 

 nose. Above all things let him beware of asking for wood- 

 cock ; if he does he will be told that they are " quite 

 plenty a bit back in the woods," and on pressing for some 

 more definite information perhaps a youth will volunteer 

 to guide him to this long-wished-for spot. Unencum- 

 bered with superfluous apparel, this youth will press gaily 

 through the familiar forest, striding through swamp, 

 through thicket, and through burnt wood. Pausing at 

 last in his mad career at the foot of a lofty pine tree he 

 will point triumphantly upwards. Imagine the feelings of 

 our wretched cock shooter, panting, torn, perspiring, and 

 indignant, when he sees a woodpecker zealously boring for 

 Iarva3. But let him restrain his homicidal propensities, 

 for if he slays that blue-nose guide he will never be able 

 to find his way out of the forest primeval, and if ever 

 again he wants to find out the whereabouts of P. Minor, 

 let him ask for the " English snipe," for the " mud 



