'I9'4 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



Somewhat, I must confess, to my surprise, I have observed 

 within the last fevv^ weeks, a long and somewhat elaborate 

 article, in the columns of that admirable journal, the New- York 

 Spiiit of the Times, the writer of which apparently quite uncon- 

 scious of all that has been written on the subject, and seeming 

 to believe that he has made a discovery, brings out anew the 

 old corn-field story. The matter is really not worth talking 

 about. Every school-boy knows that late in July and August 

 a few birds occasionally resort to wet, woodside maize-fields, 

 and every one who has shot fifty summer Cock in his life ought 

 to know, that no number are ever to be found in them, and that 

 he must have immense luck who bags a dozen Cock in all the 

 maize-fields he can beat in a hard day's walk. I would like 

 nothing better than to bet season in and out, against one bird 

 to the square acre — or square five acres, for that matter. 



I think the reader will admit that the two theories, alluded to 

 above, are by these facts indisputably controverted. 



And now I must expect that it will be enquired of me, 

 " whither, then, do they go ? What does become of them ]" 

 To which sage questions it is, 1 grieve to say, my fate to be 

 unable to make satisfactory reply. 



I was foiTnerly inclined to believe, that when the moult is at 

 hand, the Woodcock withdraws to the small upland runnels, 

 and boggy streamlets, which are to be found everywhere among 

 our highest hills or mountains. That the moulting season is the 

 signal for dispersion, and the termination of all family ties 

 between the young and old birds, is certain. From this time 

 forth, until the next February brings round the pairing time, 

 the Woodcock, whether found singly in a solitaiy place, or 

 among scores of his kind, is still a lonely and ungregarious 

 bird, coming and going at his own pleasure, without reference 

 — undemocratic rascal — to the will of the majority. 



In corroboration of this view of the absence of our bird 

 during the early autumn, I was once informed by a gentleman 

 whose word I have no reason to disbelieve, that on ascending 

 once to the summit of Bull Hill, one of the loftiest of the High- 



