88 



COCK SHOOTING 



APT PUPILS AT REHEARSAL. 



The chief objection to the use of pointers lies in the inability of their 

 legs and bodies to withstand the wear and tear of the thickets, 

 especially late in^the season when the limbs and sprays are often 

 coated with ice and rime. 



The woodcock is protected against the ubiquitous farmer's boy 

 by the necessity of following it with well-broken dogs, and also 

 on account of its elusive habits. It requires quicker shooting than 

 the youth can command to stop a bird soaring away with sharp 

 whirring whistle far above the tree-tops ; nor is it at all easy exactly 

 to mark down when it settles suddenly with a curious backward 

 jerking of the body and a strange upward flip of the wings, carrying 

 it a little distance from where it appears to go down. 



The woodcock is so little known to the ordinary American rustic 

 that even old men see the birds at close quarters usually for the first 

 time in the sportsman's bag. In some remote backwoods settle- 

 ments the farmers know him as the ' whistling red snipe ', ' bog- 

 sucker ', ' night partridge ', or ' big-headed snipe ', while the 

 right name of the bird they give to the large scarlet- crested wood- 

 pecker. 



Five or six brace of cock a day, with perhaps a couple of brace 

 of ruffed grouse and as many snipe, is considered a very fair bag for 



