NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



the favourite time of flight lies between midnight and 

 the hour of daybreak. When in full flight, the pace at 

 which woodcock progress, on a favourable wind, must 

 be very great. In the year 1796 the lighthouse-keeper 

 upon the Hill of Howth, near Dublin, was startled by 

 a violent blow against the glass of his lantern. He 

 found the plate-glass, more than three-eighths of an 

 inch in thickness, broken. Outside on the balcony he 

 picked up the unfortunate woodcock, which, attracted 

 by the strong light, had caused the mishap. Such had 

 been the enormous force of the impact that its bill, 

 head, breast-bone, and both wings were all shattered. 



Even in England, as I have said, good bags of wood- 

 cock have been occasionally made on the morning after 

 a strong flight of these birds. At Spurn Point, for 

 instance, as many as sixty have been shot in a single 

 morning, following a fresh north-east breeze and a 

 night of drizzling rain ; while at Skegness forty-three 

 were bagged on the same morning, undoubtedly from 

 the same migration. Cornwall and Devon are favourite 

 counties with cock, and in the neighbourhood of the 

 Land's End as many as fifty-four woodcock have been 

 shot by a single gunner in the course of a week. 

 Thirty-nine woodcock were bagged during the same 

 migration by a single gunner during the course of the 

 day. The Western Isles of Scotland, with their mild, 

 frostless climate, are often favoured resorts of wood- 

 cock. On the island of Mull, for example, two years 

 ago, two sportsmen secured 326 cock, among other 

 game — snipe, golden plover, wild geese, etc. — during 

 the winter's shooting, by no means a contemptible bag 

 for these days. Of these, 154 were secured in nine 

 days' shooting, in wild weather, on steep hillsides and 

 among rocks and cliffs. But it is to the west of Ireland, 

 after all, that one must look for the notable records of 



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