WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 109 



At most of the places mentioned in the article 

 on snipe shooting, cocks are abundant in July if 

 the grounds be sufficiently wet ; but at Port Penn, 

 Delaware, some distance in the rear of Price's 

 hotel, there is a maple swamp, surrounded by 

 very thick tussock meadows, which was and, 

 perhaps, is still very excellent ground. On one 

 occasion, three shooters killed ninety -three birds 

 before mid-day among the tussocks and in the 

 swamp. We have at times found them abund- 

 ant in the mountainous parts of the state in Au- 

 gust, September, October; and on the tenth of 

 November, when partridge shooting, in Lehigh 

 county, we killed in the woods seventeen of the 

 finest birds which we ever saw bagged. It is 

 worthy of remark that, in the fall of 1845, we shot 

 two woodcock in a meadow, where a few moments 

 afterwards, the dogs pointed snipe. This oc- 

 curred in Montgomery county, on a small branch 

 of the Perkiomen Creek, watering a valley a short 

 distance from the little village of Salfordville. 

 While killing a few partridges for the table, we 

 unexpectedly started three cocks from among 

 some scattered bushes which bordered a small 

 run. Upon examining these, it was discovered 

 that they had not yet done moulting. A few 

 hundred yards further, six or seven snipe were 



