WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 107 



Some of the old haunts for cock along the Dela- 

 ware, were very famous in our young days. The 

 drifts or higher portions of the flats, where the 

 refuse of the tides had collected, were sure spots, 

 especially those where the fishermen resorted to 

 dig up worms. On the Cakehouse drift fourteen 

 or fifteen birds have been killed in one morning. 

 Hay Creek cripple was considered well worth 

 hunting out, and at the name of Whitehall many 

 an old cock shooter will start as at the sound of 

 a trumpet. This was situated on Hollander's 

 Creek, and was esteemed the best place within 

 ten miles around. The drift at the head of 

 Broad Marsh, below the Point House, and all the 

 drifts and cripples along the river and the creeks 

 running into it, were, and are at the present day, 

 excellent places for cocks in dry weather. But 

 if rain falls in any considerable quantity, the 

 birds then leave these places and disperse over 

 the meadows. Strange as it may sound to the 

 sportsman, many persons who shoot are utterly 

 ignorant of this fact. Mr. Krider was once in- 

 vited by a friend to shoot cocks in the neighbor- 

 hood of Wilmington, Delaware ; the season had 

 been dry, and many birds had been killed in the 

 cripples ; but a heavy shower of rain having wet 

 the meadows and corn-fields, the party hunted in 



