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

 this covert. I was walking down one of the long tunnel-like drives 

 when a woodcock sprang from the brushwood exactly in the same 

 fashion as the bird of which I 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 almos.t 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 I shared 

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



