190 AMERICAN GAME. 



and valuable species of game, as the mildness of the 

 winters in ordinary seasons would permit the bird to 

 remain perennially in the island, without resorting to 

 migration in order to obtain food. 



The woodcock and snipe can both be very readily 

 domesticated, and can easily be induced to feed on bread 

 and milk reduced to the consistency of pulp, of which 

 they ultimately become extremely fond. This is done at 

 first by throwing a few small red worms into the bread 

 and milk, for which the birds bore and bill, as if it 

 were in their natural muddy soil. 



In all countries in which any species of the woodcock 



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is found, it is a bird essentially of moderate climates, 

 abhorring and shunning all extremes of temperature, 

 whether of heat or of cold. 



With us, it winters in the Southern States from Vir- 

 ginia, in parts of which, I believe, it is found at all sea- 

 sons of the year, through the Carolinas, Georgia and 

 Florida to Louisiana and Mississippi, in the almost 

 impenetrable cane-brakes and deep morasses of which it 

 finds a secure retreat and abundance of its favorite food, 

 during the inclement season, which binds up every 

 stream and boggy swamp of the Middle and New 

 England States in icy fetters. 



So soon, however, as the first indications of spring 

 commence, in those regions of almost tropical heat, the 

 woodcock wings its way with the unerring certainty of 

 instinct which guides him back, as surely as the magnet 



