THE WOODCOCK MODES OF CAPTURE. 139 



supply arrives annually on the coasts of the 

 British islands, and thus the slaughter which 

 would otherwise tend to the rapid diminution of 

 the species is in a great measure compensated. 



In olden time, when a ponderous matchlock or 

 a tardy single-barrelled flint gun were the most 

 efficient instruments the shooter could command, 

 it was no easy matter for the legitimate sports- 

 man to bag a couple of these birds when fairly 

 flushed by his cockers from the coppice or brush- 

 wood, and to kill a woodcock flying was justly 

 considered a triumph of the art. Various modes 

 of capturing it were then in vogue, some of 

 which are still practised in certain districts even 

 at the present time, although with the exception 

 perhaps of the net, they are gradually falling 

 into disuse, or have been succeeded by the more 

 elaborate improvements of modern poaching ; 

 while the fatal double, like the schoolmaster, is 

 abroad, in whose presence the primaeval weapons 

 of our ancestors have long since s paled their in- 

 effectual fire/ and after the lapse of another 

 generation will probably be regarded as the 

 clumsy contrivances of a semibarbarous aera. 



The gin, or iron spring trap, was much used 

 formerly to take woodcocks. We find the cir- 

 cumstance frequently alluded to in Shakspeare. 

 The haunts of the birds having been ascertained, 



