SPRING WOODCOCK SHOOTING IN GERMANY. 275 



their habits sometimes beginning to arrive as soon 

 as the sun is gone, at others delaying till it is almost 

 too dark to shoot them. 



In the method of their flight they are equally un- 

 certain ; some days they come steadily on, but on 

 others they twist and dodge about in the manner 

 with which all sportsmen are so familiar. Still, you 

 generally get some shooting if you are in one of the 

 well-known good places, and with luck may count on 

 from three to seven couple in an evening, that is in 

 less than an hour. The natives, to do them justice, 

 are not very selfish in keeping the knowledge of the 

 good places to themselves, for, truth to tell, the 

 ordinary German sportsman finds scolopax a little 

 difficult shooting. His ideal is the hare, which 

 affords a good big mark, and, if sitting, why, so much 

 the better. Thus the Britisher has a good chance to 

 show whether he can hold straight, if he has only 

 exercised a little diplomatic courtesy to the tenants of 

 neighbouring shootings beforehand. 



This particular year^ has been considerably below 

 the average in this matter of the spring woodcock 

 flight. The German sporting press attributes this to 

 the severe winter in the Adriatic, and not without a 

 show of reason, as the following argument will prove. 

 They say one of the favourite winter haunts of the 

 woodcock is the Illyrian and Dalmatian coast, and 

 when the winter is not too hard there, large quantities 

 of woodcock remain there, as is proved by the 

 enormous bags three to four hundred head in a day 

 frequently made on that coast. The woodcock who 



* Written 1893. 



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