METHODS OF CAPTURING WOODCOCKS. 



turing them with horse-hair nooses. These nooses were generally 

 made of black horse-hair, with a running knot and spring-stick.* 

 For capturing woodcocks they should be laid flat upon the ground, 

 so as to snare them by their legs. In this manner poachers take 

 scores of partridges by placing the hair nooses in furrows ; parti- 

 cularly if a few grains of corn be scattered among them. Thus it 

 appears the woodcock is exposed to constant perils and incessant 

 persecutions by the fowler ; 



" Yet not the perils of the aerial voyage, 

 Nor varied death, that hovers on the shore 

 From guns, and nets, and hairy springes, serve 

 The fruitful race t' extirpate. 



Woodcocks are also taken by snares and nooses in various ways 

 in continental countries.! Mr. Bell, in his Travels in Asia, speaks of 

 a singular method of taking the coc-limoge, the heath cock, and 

 others, by the Osteacks. They erect a sort of paling of stakes about 

 four or five feet in height, so as to form a pathway from some wood, 

 and if possible along a sandy bank, leading to the brink of a river. 

 These stakes are placed sufficiently close that no cock can pass 

 between them. But at certain intervals there are openings or 

 passages for the purpose of inviting the birds to pass through ; and 

 it is found, that rather than take wing the cock will seek a passage 

 from one end of the enclosed space to the other. In each of these 

 openings are set springes or snares connected with flexible rods, which 

 fly up and catch the bird either by the neck or legs the moment it 

 ventures to touch or approach the fowler's apparatus. The Osteacks 

 catch numbers of cocks in this manner.! 



In the woods of Finland and Lapland, where woodcocks are very 

 abundant, numbers of them are captured in snares. The natives are 

 also very fond of their eggs : they take these in great quantities, 

 disposing of them as an article of food. They are very skilful in 

 their modes of capturing the woodcock ; and by judiciously placing 

 stones on each side, the birds, in endeavouring to avoid the obstruc- 

 tions, pass directly into the snares. 



Woodcocks are found throughout the United States and in Canada, 

 they pass towards the south as winter approaches. They are also 



* Vide " Jewell for Gentrie :". and Blome's Gent's. Eecns. 

 f Vide Aviceptologie Fran9aise, before referred to. 

 J Bell's Travels in Asia. 



