UPLAND SHOOTING. 197 



winter and deep snow-drifts Quail-destroying of 1836, to rescue 

 that delightful little fowl from total extinction, stand forth in 

 likewise now, in protection of the Woodcock. Sufficient for 

 the day is the evil thereof Railroads are ruining the hopes — 

 the pleasures of the sportsman ; our best shooting grounds now 

 swar i , on the fir-;t of July, with guns more numerous than 

 hirds; tlit^ AN'arwick woodlands, once inaccessible to the pot- 

 hunter and the poacher, may now be reached for fifty cents ; 

 may now be swept clear in a single day ; nay, are swept clear 

 of half-fledged younglings, by men, boys, and bunglei-s, and 

 ruthlessly devoured before the season has set in, by ignorant 

 voracious cockneys. 



Reform it altogether !' 



Enact that the Woodcock shall not be slain — shall not be 

 possessed — as Mr. Blunt possessed him — on plate or in stomach, 

 until the first day of October. Every true sportsman — every 

 sportsman whatsoever, will go hand and heart with the law — 

 will watch and prevent the illegal sale of the bird ; and then, 

 ye gods of woodcraft ! Sylvans and Fauns ! and thou, friend 

 of the hunter. Pan ! what sport shall we have in brown Octo- 

 ber, when the sere underbrush is bare of leaves to mar the 

 sportsman's aim ; when the cool dewy earth sends up the odor 

 of the game in fresh steams to the Setter's keen and sagacious 

 nose ; when the pure air braces the nerves and fans the brow, 

 delicious ; when the full-grown, white-fronted, pink-legged 

 Cock springs up — not fluttering feebly now, and staggering 

 stupidly into the muzzle of the gun, to drop again within twenty 

 yarthi, but on a vigorous and whistling pinion, wi.h sharp-piping 

 alarm note, swift as a rifle-bullet, soaring away through the 

 tree-tops, or dar.ing, devious with abrupt zig-zags, among the 

 thick-set saplings. 



Him, no boy can blaze at, his twenty times in half an hour, 

 and slaughter after all with one chance pellet, or happily wea- 

 ried down icithout one ! Him can no German gun achieve, of 

 cast-iron, scattering its shot over an area of twenty feet, harm- 



