DECEMBER 437 



ally, I have never heard a woodcock do before — uttered a low 

 double note not unlike that of a snipe, but much less shrill. As 

 nearly as I can copy it on paper this was the noise it made, 

 cheep-dteep. Ey the way, once I saw a curious incident occur in 

 this covert. I was walking down one of the long tunncl-likc drives 

 when a woodcock sprang from the brushwood exactly in the same 

 fashion as the bird of which 1 have been writing. So close did it 

 pass that my loader put out his hand and caught it, much as a 

 clever field might take a ball at point. This bird, I remember, 

 showed no outward signs of having been wounded. 



There were about a dozen woodcocks in the covert to-day, but 

 from one mischance or another, very few were shot. Indeed, no 

 bird is more frequently missed than the woodcock, or indirectly, 

 I may add, more dangerous to those who try to shoot him. Under 

 the cover of a jest there is wisdom in the latter half of the old 

 sporting axiom which tells the beginner when he hears the cry of 

 * Woodcock' to fire both barrels straight at his nearest neigh- 

 bour and throw himself flat on to his face. Once I was shot 

 through the hat by a gentleman intent upon bagging a low 

 woodcock. 



I suppose that shooting as a sport comes in for more contempt 

 and abuse than almost any other form of outdoor recreation. 

 While I was waiting at one of my stands to-day, however, and 

 listening to the long line of beaters as they approached, it occurred 

 to me that it would be a very great misfortune if, through the 

 abolition of the game-laws, or any other cause, it ceased to be 

 possible in this country. I imagine that in the Eastern Counties 

 alone such a thing would mean the loss of tens — I almost venture 

 to say of hundreds^of thousands of pounds, which are now dis- 

 tributed annually amongst the owners and occupiers of the soil, 

 gamekeepers, beaters, gunmakers, grain and patent-food dealers, 

 liverymen, hotel-keepers, parish authorities (shootings pay rates), 

 and a hundred others who directly or indirectly benefit by the 

 spending of money in a place Some years ago 1 shared 

 with two friends a moderate-sized shooting in Norfolk, which 



