COCK-SHOOTING IN ACHIL. 353 



Then will the sportsman be amply repaid for all his 

 labour. From a copse of not more than thirty acres 

 extent, I have seen fifty couple of woodcocks flushed ; 

 and, as several excellent covers lay in the immediate 

 vicinity, it was no unusual thing for two or three guns 

 to bring home twenty, nay, thirty, couple. I have known 

 a party fire a number of shots that appeared incredible ; 

 and I have more than once expended my last charge of 

 powder, and left, for want of ammunition, one or more 

 copses untried. 



The best cock-shooting cannot be had without a good 

 deal of fag. Like fox-hunting, it is work for hardy 

 spirits ; and non sine pulvere palma will apply to both. 

 To reach a mountain cover, the sportsman must be on 

 the alert two or three hours before daylight, for he has 

 likely some ten Irish miles to ride or drive over, by a 

 rough and dangerous road, now rendered scarcely 

 discernible from the adjacent bogs, and hardly passable 

 from the snowdrifts. The short day is hardly sufficient 

 for shooting the different woods ; and then the same 

 distance must be again traversed, for which the shooter 

 will be a borrower from the night. Then he must 

 reckon on divers delays and sundry accidents ; horses 

 will come down, dog-carts capsize, a trace break, or a 

 spring fail ; and what has annoyed me more than all 

 together, probably a fog rise so suddenly and densely, 

 as to render the road undistinguishable from the sur- 

 rounding heaths. But when all this is achieved, when 

 a cover-party have fairly encircled the table, after the 

 luxury of a complete toilet, when the fire sparkles, 

 the curtains are drawn, and the wine circulates, why 

 then, without let the storm blow till it bursts its cheeks 

 and within, Father Care may hang himself in his own 

 garters. 



I A 



