220 THE FOWLER IN I EEL AND. 



It is a common error to imagine that Cock, like 

 Snipe, will soon lose their condition in frost. The 

 latter in a week will become, if frost be severe, 

 mere skin and bone. Out of hundreds of Cock 

 that I examined during the month above referred to, 

 perhaps only a dozen were small and poor birds, the 

 rest were plump and handsome. I often inspected 

 those shot and exposed for sale, and at the end of 

 the hard weather there was but little appreciable 

 difference in their condition. At the end of the 

 frost I picked out three birds amongst a number of 

 fresh killed ones, each of which weighed exactly 

 sixteen ounces, and a fourth which weighed eighteen 

 and a quarter ounces. I may safely say that over 

 five thousand Woodcock were brought into one 

 small town in co. Clare during the frost that held 

 with such vigour for three weeks in January, 1881. 

 Countrymen bearing sacks of Woodcock on their 

 backs, on their way from the coast where the birds 

 had been killed to the towns, was a sight I many 

 times sadly viewed. They were actually slain that 

 winter with sticks and stones in many parts of 

 Ireland by frozen-out labourers, who had nothing 

 better wherewith to amuse themselves. 



To account for the presence of Woodcocks on 

 the western seaboard of Ireland in such large 

 flights in early winter, several theories have been 

 suggested,* the most probable being, 



* Though Woodcock; when they first arrive, often appear in large 

 flights, they will equally distribute their numbers through the woods, 

 ditches, and hedges, day by day feeling their way into the heart of 

 the country ; yet when they visit the coast during hard frost and deep 

 snow, which latter more than ice covers up their food and drives them 

 from inland, they may be seen in batches of four to even a half-dozen 



