196 FRANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



return until the premature cold of northern Canada drives them 

 back, to tarry with us a few months on their way southward. 



Should this prove to be the case, the Woodcock, instead of 

 being termed with us a summer bird of passage, must be 

 regarded as a spring and autumnal visitant, like his congener, 

 the Snipe — with this difference, that the Snipe rarely breeds 

 with us, going northward to nidificate, while his fellow-emigrant, 

 our ScolojMX, invariably rears his young before going farther 

 toward the frosts of the northern pole. 



Of these suggestions my readers must judge whether is 

 the better of the two ; one of the two I believe to be the only 

 way for accounting for the Woodcock's short disappearance at 

 this season. For the rest, as I leaned at first to the foiTuer, so 

 do I now rather incline toward the latter belief, facts not bear- 

 ing out the former to my satisfaction, although I do not think 

 the question has been, as yet, fully tested by experiment. 



It is to be regretted here, that this question is yearly becom- 

 ing, in these districts, more difficult of solution ; and I am the 

 more strenuous in noting this emigration, because things may 

 come, ere long, to such a pass, that it will become wholly 

 undistinguishable. 



When I first shot in New-Jersey, and in the river counties 

 of New-York, the disappearance of the birds was evident 

 enough ; because, up to a certain day, they abounded, and after 

 that, were not. Now, long before the second week of July, 

 the Woodcock are exterminated in their summer haunts for 

 miles and miles around our large cities ; too many of them, 

 alas ! slaughtered before the season, when scarcely able to fly 

 — when nearly unfit for the table — when a game despicable to 

 the loyal sportsman, and a victim easy to the pot-hunting knave, 

 who goes gunning with a half-bred, half-broken cur, and a Ger- 

 man fowling-piece, dear at a dollar's purchase. 



Oh ! gentlemen legislators — gentlemen sportsmen, 



" Reform it altogether I" 

 Oh ! ye choice spirits, who stood forth, after the long, hard 



