ISO THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



is not more of it ; still, like the snipe, it is remarkably 

 good eating, so that the gourmet, at any rate, will 

 concede that what is lacking in quantity is made up for 

 in quality. The landrail lays from eight to twelve eggs, 

 in a slight hollow in the ground, which it lines with dry 

 grass. The eggs have a creamy or reddish-white 

 ground, spotted with grey and light red or reddish- 

 brown. The eggs cannot very well be mistaken for 

 those of the quail, as they are of different form and 

 considerably larger, being nearly if in. long by n in. 

 broad. 



THE WOODCOCK. (Scolopax rustzcola.} 



Of all migratory fowl the woodcock, perhaps, is the 

 one most prized by the game-shooter. There is this 

 anomaly respecting the sporting status of the woodcock, 

 that whilst generally regarded by sportsmen as a game- 

 bird, it is not characterized as game in our principal 

 Game Act (i and 2 Will. 4, cap. 32). This notwith- 

 standing, the woodcock has, in a measure, since come to 

 be regarded as worthy of the protection accorded to 

 partridge and pheasant, for by the Act 23 and 24 Viet, 

 cap. 90, a licence to kill game is now required by all 

 those who shoot the woodcock. And, by the way, it 

 may just be as well to mention here that sportsmen who 

 shoot quail and landrail, the two birds last described, 

 must be similarly equipped in this matter of a game 

 licence. 



Although I have spoken of the woodcock as a 

 migratory bird, it is a fact tolerably well known that 

 some do remain to nest in this country. Moreover, 

 sportsmen generally have more or less cause for con- 



