ZQI^ FRANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



more, his indigenousness to the land, acts in a considerable 

 degree as a protection to him. But the Woodcock, who is a 

 mere emigrant, here to-day and away to-monow, has no 

 domestic friend, no landlord to protect him, and men forget that 

 if spared, he will as surely return to breed in the same wood 

 acain, bringing all his progeny with him to increase and mul- 

 tiply, as the tepid winds and warm showers of April and May 

 will succeed to the easterly gales and snow drifts of March, and 

 the leaves be green in summer from the buds which burst in 

 spring. 



My game law, such as it is, will be found in the appendix to 

 Upland Shooting. I believe it would be useful as it is, but 

 should any sportsman or any society of sportsmen be able to 

 concoct one better either in practice, or in the probability of 

 success, I and all my friends, and those who think with me on 

 the subject, are prepared to support it. Unity of action is the 

 one thing needful ; and that cannot be attained if every man 

 holds out resolutely for his own crotchet. 



Let the pr nciple once be affirmed and made good, and the 

 details are of infinitely minor importance. They will follow. 

 For the rest, wha' is to be done, must be done quickly, or we 

 shall be liable to the ridicule which falls on the tardy /a'nca7if 

 who locks his stable door after the horse is stolen. 



Three or four more seasons like the two last, and the. ques- 

 tion will be settled to our hands, and if we do not bestir 

 ourselves now, we shall find ere long that we shall have neither 

 summer nor autumn Cock-shooting within a hundred miles of 

 the seaboard. 



