THE WOODCOCK. 55 



In the South, in the alluvial and swampy portions of 

 Louisiana, they are found in great numbers from Decem- 

 ber to February; but upon the higher land, covered with 

 open pine forests, they are rare, except where such bor- 

 der lakes and streams. In the thickets along the rivers 

 and ponds, in the little branches, in the low switch-cane, 

 and among the dwarf palmetto near swamps, they rest 

 by day, and feed at night in the wet savannahs and 

 neighboring cultivated fields. Here, as in their northern 

 quarters, they are very uncertain as to localities, for 

 to-day a certain thicket may be full of them and to-mor- 

 row not a bird be found. 



During a period of unusually severe weather, they 

 collect in the warmer swamps in vast numbers; and in 

 the streets and gardens of Mandeville, a town upon the 

 shore of Lake Pontchartrain, they have been known to 

 collect in such numbers that a boy killed five dozen in a 

 single day. 



Their winter habitat extends from the Carolinas 

 along the southern coast; but in that vast undrained terri- 

 tory of the Texas coast, which is claimed to be the finest 

 feeding-ground for the jack-snipe on this continent, and 

 where they abound from October to April, woodcock are 

 never seen. 



In certain sections, when they take to the wide, open 

 fields for feeding, the pot-hunter kills great numbers by 

 the light of torches, which so bewilders them that they 

 are easily shot or beaten down with clubs. Although in 

 many places this fire-hunting has been given up, along 

 the Mississippi, as it nears the Gulf, and on some of the 

 bayous, notably the Bceuf, and along the Atchafalaya, it 

 is still practiced to some extent, owing to the physical 

 characteristics of the country, which, it is claimed, make 

 it almost impossible for one to find and shoot them in 

 their day-time haunts. This may be exciting, but has 



