TTOODCOCKS IX WALES. 149 



seasons very good. For instance, the result of two 

 days' shooting in February 1807 was sixty-four cocks 

 by a single sportsman ; on the first day thirty-seven, 

 and on the second twenty-seven. He was accompanied 

 by three beaters and one steady retrieving spaniel. 

 These birds were killed in covers through which the 

 walking is most difficult, and consequently the shooting 

 uncertain. This performance is quite sufficient to es- 

 tablish the character of this gentleman as a first-rate 

 sportsman. Some years ago w^oodcocks were very 

 numerous in the winter in South Wales*, so much so 

 that a gentleman who resided in Swansea shot in one 

 season one hundred couples, and I have heard that in 

 Ireland, forty or fifty years ago, fifty couples of cocks 

 have been shot by two guns in one day. In Wales, the 

 cock shooting in the dingles or small wooded valleys is 

 very gratifying. Two sportsmen, one on each side, 

 commanding a view of the low copse, with a brace of 

 steady spaniels and a good marker, will most likely 

 seldom fail to fill the game bag if cocks are plentiful. 

 As a proof how essential good markers are in cock shoot- 

 ing, the late Mr. Brown of Frampton in Dorsetshire, 

 w^ho was a regular old sportsman, had constructed in 

 different parts of his woods, against the large trees, a 



* At a dinner party I inquired of a gentleman "n-ho resided in South 

 "Wales -whetlier he had made any singular shots at woodcocks. He re- 

 plied that he had not, but that his gamekeeper once shot three wood- 

 cocks with one barrel and one with the other. This appeared to astonish 

 all the company present as it did myself. 



As Sir. John Snow of Boode, Devonshire, was sporting on his 

 grounds, in 1856, he started a rabbit, which ran throiigh a hedge, flush- 

 ing two woodcocks. JVIr. S. shot one of the woodcocks, and just as he 

 was pomting the second barrel at the other, the rabbit again crossed the 

 path, and the charge brought down both woodcock and rabbit. 

 1,3 



