Minor British Game Birds. 145 



portions of plantations. Coppice-belts they like 

 best, especially such as contain spring-runs. It 

 is here that the bird most easily finds food, the 

 soft ground enabling it to probe quickly and to 

 a considerable depth in search of earthworms. 

 These constitute its principal diet, and the 

 quantity that a single bird will devour is 

 enormous. The long mobile bill of the wood- 

 cock is a study in itself. The rapidity with 

 which the bird uses it in following a worm in the 

 ground is marvellous. It is extremely flexible 

 so much so as to be bent and twisted into 

 every shape without suffering harm and it is as 

 sensitive as flexible. 



Every sportsman knows that woodcocks are 

 here to-day, gone to-morrow. He often finds 

 that where there were plenty yesterday not a 

 single 'cock remains. Ireland, perhaps, affords 

 the best shooting. It was here that the Earl of 

 Clermont shot fifty brace in one day. This feat 

 was the result of a wager ; and the bag was made 

 by two o'clock in the afternoon, with a single- 

 barrelled flint-lock. The birds were shot in a 

 moist wood ; and it is in such spots on the mild 

 west coast that the woodcock finds its favourite 

 haunt. In England the birds affect coppice- 

 woods, frequenting most those which are wet, 

 and such as have rich deposits of dead and 

 decaying leaves. Most of these copses are of 

 oak and birch and hazel, and being only of a few 



