AUTUMN SHOOTING. 327 



plumage, in prime condition, a large, plump bird, with a 

 ruffed neck, a fair gray forehead, and pink legs, weighing 

 from eight to nine and a half ounces on an average, and 

 sometimes exceeding the latter weight by one or even two 

 ounces. 



He is, also, as different a bird to shoot now, from what 

 he was in July, as if he were of another rat- . Even be- 

 fore setters, instead of flapping up lazily like a half-awak- 

 ened owl by daylight, he springs sharply with a clear ring- 

 ing whistle, darts upward through the tree-tops, and often 

 makes two or three quick zigzags like a wild-flushed snipe, 

 before settling on his flight. Among saplings I have seen 

 autumn cock twist worse, and have found them more 

 difficult to kill, than the wildest spring snipe I have ever 

 shot, especially if they have been raised by a beater, or by 

 spaniels, when they will dart hither and thither like bullets 

 through the leafless trees. It is only quick and slashing 

 snap shots that will fetch them, and sometimes the very 

 best shots will unavoidably miss, from the bird dropping 

 suddenly three or four feet with a jerking twist at the very 

 point of time when the trigger is drawn ; so that, no matter 

 how true the aim, the charge must go over him. 



In marking him, the same rules are to be observed now 

 as in summer shooting ; but whereas he then rarely flew 

 fifty yards, or went out of sight, he will now soar away 

 half a mile, leave the wood he is flushed in, and perhaps 

 fly across a valley or a dozen open fields, and drop on a 

 ferny hill-side, or in a single willow bush by some lonely 

 spring. 



Nothing can be said, with certainty, I believe, con- 



