THE AMEEICAN WOODCOCK. 193 



day, in New Jersey the fifth, and in all the Middle 

 States, with the single exception of Delaware, where it 

 is deferred until August, some day of the same month is 

 fixed as the termination of close time. Even in Dela- 

 ware the exception is rendered nugatory, by a provision 

 permitting every person to shoot on his own grounds, 

 whether in or out of season, in consequence of which 

 the birds are all killed off early in June. 



It may now be set down almost as a rule, that in all 

 the Atlantic seaboard counties, and, indeed, every where 

 in the vicinity of the large cities and great thorough- 

 fares, the whole of the summer hatching is killed off 

 before the end of July, with the exception of a few 

 scattered stragglers, which have escaped pursuit in some 

 impenetrable brake or oozy quagmire which defies the 

 foot of the sportsman ; that few survive to moult, and 

 that the diminished numbers, which we now find on our 

 autumn shooting-grounds, are supplied exclusively by 

 the northern and Canadian broods, which keep success- 

 ively flying before the advancing cold of winter, and 

 sojourning among us for a longer or a shorter period, ere 

 they wing their way to the rice-fields of the Savannah, 

 or the cane-brakes of the Mississippi. 



If my method could be generally adopted, of letting 

 the fifteenth day of September, after the moulting season 

 is passed, and when the birds are beginning again to 

 congregate on their favorite feeding-grounds, be the 

 commencement of every sort of upland shooting, with- 

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