COCK-SHOOTING IN ACHIL. 353 



Then will the sportsman be amply repaid for all his 

 labour. From a copse of not more than thirty acres 

 extent, I have seen fifty couple of woodcocks flushed ; 

 and, as several excellent covers lay in the immediate 

 vicinity, it was no unusual thing for two or three guns 

 to bring home twenty, nay, thirty, couple. I have known 

 a party fire a number of shots that appeared incredible ; 

 and I have more than once expended my last charge of 

 powder, and left, for want of ammunition, one or more 

 copses untried. 



The best cock-shooting cannot be had without a good 

 deal of fag. Like fox-hunting, it is work for hardy 

 spirits ; and non sine pulvere palma will apply to both. 

 To reach a mountain cover, the sportsman must be on 

 the alert two or three hours before daylight, for he has 

 likely some ten Irish miles to ride or drive over, by a 

 rough and dangerous road, now rendered scarcely 

 discernible from the adjacent bogs, and hardly passable 

 from the snowdrifts. The short day is hardly sufficient 

 for shooting the diflFerent woods ; and then the same 

 distance must be again traversed, for which the shooter 

 will be a borrower from the night. Then he must 

 reckon on divers delays and sundry accidents ; horses 

 will come down, dog-carts capsize, a trace break, or a 

 spring fail ; and what has annoyed me more than all 

 together, probably a fog rise so suddenly and densely, 

 as to render the road undistinguishable from the sur- 

 rounding heaths. But when all this is achieved, — when 

 a cover-party have fairly encircled the table, after the 

 luxury of a complete toilet, — when the fire sparkles, 

 the curtains are drawn, and the wine circulates, — why 

 then, without let the storm blow till it bursts its cheeks — 

 and within, Father Care may hang himself in his own 

 garters. 



I A 



