PROTECTION RECOMMENDED. 47 



engage in an annual crusade against them, and 

 especially if there should be many such deadly 

 shots as Colonel Parker and his friends, the spe- 

 cies must manifestly be soon greatly reduced. 

 Here too let me observe, that I think it would 

 tend much to the preservation and increase of 

 the woodcock in this country, if all proprietors 

 would extend to it the same immunity which is 

 so properly granted to our gallinaceous game 

 birds, namely, not to allow it to be shot after 

 the 1st of February. At present we know that 

 it is customary in many counties to shoot hares 

 and rabbits long after the pursuit of the pheasant 

 has ceased, and on such occasions not only the 

 keepers and farmers who so far as I am inte- 

 rested would be most welcome to their share of 

 the sport but also many idlers about the neigh- 

 bouring towns and villages, form a rabble rout 

 with all the curs of the district at their heels, to 

 drive the covers and exterminate certain quadru- 

 peds and birds over which the law has not ex- 

 tended the aegis of its protection. Amongst these 

 the poor woodcock is a frequent martyr ; and his 

 fate is the more to be lamented, that being by 

 general habit a migratory bird, the scattered 

 examples that are found during the spring and 

 summer had probably resolved to become perma- 

 nent settlers and colonists amongst us, and had 



