138 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



"Aye, springes to catch woodcocks." SHAKSPEARE. 



The Woodcock Modes of Capture Net and Gin Wood- 

 cock trapped Attempts to Rear it in Confinement 

 Insatiable Appetite of the ' Bird of Suction ' Rapid 

 Digestion Crepuscular Habits High-road Gunners 

 Netting Snares, Ancient and Modern The Old Poacher 

 and his Springe. 



ALTHOUGH it is principally to the inefficiency 

 of the game laws, to the increasing taste for 

 shooting which pervades all classes of society, and 

 to the facilities afforded now-a-days for the acqui- 

 sition of a good fowling-piece, that the scarcity 

 of partridges and pheasants in many counties 

 may be attributed; yet the woodcock not being 

 strictly included in the same category, and a 

 certificate not being necessary for its legal de- 

 struction, it is still more persecuted by the gunner 

 and less sought after by the wirer and trapper 

 than birds of the gallinaceous order. Being 

 fortunately a migrant with some exceptions 

 from the boundless forests of the North, a fair 



