150 EEMIXISCEXCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



sort of rough ladders to enable tlie markers to ascend 

 them rapidly. These are the only woods in which I 

 saw this judicious plan adopted to ensure good sport. 



The woodcock feeds and flies by night, commencing 

 its flight in the evening, and returns towards daylight 

 to the same cover. They leave England at the end of 

 February or the beginning of March (I think I men- 

 tioned that I shot one the 9th of April), though they 

 sometimes stay longer. These birds appear in Scotland 

 generally on the eastern coasts, and proceed in their 

 flight from east to west. Woodcocks are found in the 

 Levant as far south as Smyrna and Aleppo, and it is 

 said that some have been found as far south as Egypt, 

 but this is the utmost extent of their migration east- 

 ward. There are a variety of opinions among sports- 

 men whether woodcocks in their migration to this 

 country come to the same part of the coast to which 

 they had resorted in the preceding year, but from the 

 following account, derived from Daniel's " Eural Sports," 

 it wovdd appear that they frequently come the next 

 season to the same part of the country : — 



"In February 1798, Mr. Pleydell says a woodcock 

 was caught in Clerston Wood, by the gamekeeper, in a 

 rabbit net, and preserved alive. A brass ring was put 

 on its left leg, and it was let fly from Whatcombe House. 

 In the following season, on the 18th of December, the 

 same bird was shot by Mr. P. in the same wood in which 

 it was originally taken ; the woodcock was stuffed and 

 kept at "WTiatcombe House." 



" On making my appearance in the breakfast-room 

 the landlord came in and proposed driving me in his 

 dog-cart to the covers we intended beating ; and having 

 partaken of a substantial breakfast, a steady old setter 



