COCK SHOOTING 



79 



meadows. Occasionally it may be seen out of sheer joy and sport- 

 iveness slanting its body strangely sideways, so that one wing 

 appears pointing skywards and the other earthwards, as it sails 

 through the air in a swift oblique descent to some low-lying alder 

 brake. 



Old clearings often afford grand sport during the late autumn. 

 Here one can enjoy the ne plus ultra of cock shooting. Here are 

 no dense thickets that must be fought through somehow before 

 one can meet the game, but the dogs may be sent into the coverts 

 while the guns take their chances outside. Fair straight-away shots 



THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK 



(Philomela minor). 



in the open as the birds dash out this way or that render cock shoot- 

 ing under such conditions a fascinating and enthralling sport. 



These dry clearings are further useful in affording the cock 

 their favourite breeding places. Failing these, the birds will select 

 the dry slope of some sparsely wooded hillside abutting some moist 

 tract occupied by alders, moose wood, or young maples. At all 

 seasons of the year the cock requires soft soil which may readily 

 yield to the probings of its long bill. No sign of the presence of 

 cock is more welcome than their fresh ' borings ', sometimes in a 

 straight row, but more often in the form of a semicircle, in muddy 



