WOODCOCK SHOOTING IN GREECE. 39 



strength enables them to work their way through 

 the jungles of blackthorn, where the more dimi- 

 nutive cocker would be soon baffled or exhausted. 

 Half broken dogs are superior to those which 

 are perfectly trained, as it is absolutely necessary 

 that they should wander as far as possible from 

 their keeper or huntsman, and bustle about in 

 the tangled recesses of the cover, which would 

 of course be inaccessible to him, while even the 

 habit of crying or giving tongue so serious a 

 fault in the eyes of the sportsman at home is 

 considered a natural accomplishment of the highest 

 value by the woodcock shooter in Greece. 



Never having had the good fortune myself 

 to pull a trigger on the banks of the Eurotas, to 

 shoot snipes on the plain of Marathon, or to hear 

 the echo of a double-barrel among the sacred 

 heights of Ossa and Olympus, I am unable to 

 speak of the subject from personal experience ; 

 but the kindness of a friend Colonel Parker, 

 1st Life Guards has enabled me in some mea- 

 sure to supply the deficiency, and to furnish the 

 reader with information which, although it may 

 excite very different feelings in their breasts, 

 cannot fail to prove interesting to the ornitho- 

 logist and the sportsman. 



Colonel Parker's notes refer to an expedition 

 which he made in the Louisa yacht, with his 



