78 COCK SHOOTING 



always a true measure of the day's enjoyment, a bright autumn day 

 spent among the haunts of this engaging game bird has its own 

 peculiar fascination. Even should the birds prove more wary and 

 sagacious than yourself (a circumstance by no means impossible), 

 still a visit to their haunts is well worth while for the sake of bro,ad 

 open views of hill and dale ; for the sake of sequestered vales such 

 as the sylvan god Faunus, Nymphamm fugientum amator, might 

 have sought out wherein to ' hide him from day's garish eye ' ; 

 for the sake of meadows enamelled with brimming chalices of the 

 red-veined Indian cup, and woodland paths where autumn has 

 scattered its bountiful largesse of colour ; and for the sake of the 

 dusk shade where, amid the trickling coolness of mossy springs, 

 banks of sere brown and bleached pale gold ferns, making twilight 

 with lush tangles of alders, load the air with a fragrance sweeter 

 than that of the many coloured blossoms of summer. 



In the backwoods settlements of Nova Scotia one often falls in 

 with old clearings which are seldom without their brood or two of 

 cock. Here invading clumps of alders, like light infantry thrown 

 out by the wilderness to retake its vanquished territory, furnish 

 covert which the woodcock loves best of all, beneath which the 

 deep rich soil is full of choice angleworms and fat larvae of May 

 chafers. 



Such spots the birds commonly make for when they arrive 

 towards the end of March, while yet the skirts of winter lie on the 

 landscape. Before the nipping frosty weather is yet altogether 

 done with, there usually come a few bright days when great white- 

 bosomed clouds drive slowly across the blue vault before a gentle 

 west wind, which flushes with delicate rose the bursting sheaths of 

 the swelling maple buds. All the forest streams are loosened and 

 the air is full of the gurgle of running waters, as the last remnants 

 of the snow are vanishing under the touch of the spring sunshine. 

 There is as yet no thought of listening for the strain of linnet or 

 song-sparrow, or even for the cheery song of the robin (red-breasted 

 thrush). The earliest migrant to arrive, the last to depart, the 

 woodcock, hastening to make the most of the short breeding season, 

 may now be seen running along the borders of the warm springs, 

 or a hasty view may be caught of its glimmering brown wings in the 

 dusk of the evening twilight. 



In the daytime the bird is seldom seen unless disturbed with 

 dogs, but at the arrival of dusk it suddenly becomes all activity. 

 Darting athwart the pale clearness of the vernal sky, it may now be 

 watched floating in moth-like flight over the briary tangles of alder 

 coppice, or, with a curious twittering, flitting from the dry upland 

 coverts across the fields towards its wet feeding grounds in adjacent 



