120 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



all worse eating than others. But I am satisfied that the great 

 bulk shift their quarters, whither I have not yet fully ascertained ; 

 but I believe to the small runnels and deep swales which are 

 found throughout all the mountain tracts of the middle States ; 

 and in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed and scattered 

 in such small parties that they are not worth looking after, till 

 the frost drives them down to their old haunts. A gentleman, 

 whom I can depend on, told me once that he climbed Bull Hill 

 one year late in September Bull Hill is one of the loftiest peaks 

 in the Highlands of the Hudson merely to show the prospect 

 to a friend, and he found all the brushwood on the summit full 

 of fine autumn cock, not a bird having been seen for weeks in 

 the low woodlands at the base. They had no guns with them 

 at the time, and some days elapsed before he could again spare 

 a few hours to hunt them up ; in the meantime frost came, the 

 birds returned to their accustomed swamps and levels, and, 

 when he did again scale the rough mountain, not a bird re- 

 warded his trouble. This, if true, which I do not doubt, would 

 go far to prove my theory correct ; but it is not easy to arrive 

 at absolute certainty, for if I am right, during that period birds 

 are to be found no where in abundance, and a man must be a 

 downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking the 

 hardest walking in the world, by the way purely for the sake 

 of learning the habits of friend Scotyxzx, with no hope of get- 

 ting a good bag after all." 



" How late have you ever killed a cock previous to their great 

 southern flight ?" 



"Never myself beyond the fifteenth of November ; but Tom 

 Draw assures me, and his asseveration was accidently cor- 

 roborated by a man who walked along with him, that he killed 

 thirty birds last year in Hell-hole, which both of you fellows 

 know, on the thirteenth of December. There had been a very 

 severe frost indeed, and the ice on that very morning was quite 

 thick, and the mud frozen hard enough to bear in places. But 

 the day was warm, bright, and genial, and, as he says, it came 

 into his head to see * if cock was all gone,' and he went to what 

 he knew to be the latest ground, and found the very heaviest 

 and finest birds he ever saw !" 



" Oh ! that of course," said A , " if he found any ! Did 



you ever hear of any other bird so late ? 3> 



" Yes ! later Mike Sandford, I think, but some Jerseyman 

 or other killed a couple the day after Christmas day, on a 



