210 FRANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



ber, — the latter bird being for the most part a few days behind 

 his congener. 



It is very well worthy of remark, both by the sportsman and 

 the scientific ornithologist, that on their return in the autumn, 

 neither the Woodcock nor the Snipe are found precisely on 

 the same ground, which they use in spring ; and I am inclined 

 to believe, that a more thorough investigation of this fact, might 

 lead to the acquisition of more knowledge than we possess at 

 present, concerning the causes of the migration of our various 

 birds of passage. 



In my articles on spring Snipe, and summer Cock shooting, 

 I have observed that at these seasons the two birds frequently 

 appear to change their habits and haunts mutually ; the former 

 being very often found in low brushwood, and among dense 

 briar patches, and the latter, even more commonly, on open, 

 rushy, water meadows, without a bush or particle of covert in 

 the vicinity. 



In no respect does this ever happen in the autumn. I have 

 seen no instance myself, nor have I heard of any from the most 

 constant and legular country sportsman, who have the best op 

 portunity of noting such peculiai'ities, of the Snipe ever resort- 

 ing even to the thinnest covert on wood-edges, much less to 

 dense coppices and tall woodlands, in the autumn. Nor have T 

 ever seen a Woodcock on open meadow in that season. 



In Salem county, in New Jersey, this latter fact is A^ery 

 strongly demonstrated ; inasmuch as during the summer the 

 birds are hunted entirely, and four-fifths of them killed, on what 

 would elsewhere be called regular Snipe ground, or in small 

 brakes along the dykes and river margins ; and there is no finer 

 summer Cock ground than this county, in the whole State. 



In the autumn, on the contrary, when the bird seeks otlier lo- 

 calities, there is little or no covert, such as he loves, to be found 

 in Salem, and of consequence, there is little or no autumn Cock 

 shooting to be had in the southern district of New Jersey. 



The Snipe, on his arrival, betakes himself at once to the same 

 ranges of country, and the same meadows, as in the spring ; 



