WOODCOCKS 



WOODCOCK shooting over a team of spaniels is the 

 fox-hunting of shooting, according to Colonel Peter 

 Hawker. 



It is generally stated that woodcocks are decreasing in 

 numbers of late years, but this is possibly a mistake. At any 

 rate, Lord Ardilaun has at Ashford made the biggest bag ever 

 known in Ireland only eleven years ago namely, 205 'cock 

 in the day; and in 1905 the record bag for Cornwall was 

 accomplished, but this is far from being the record for 

 England also. Still, there is no proof that because a big bag 

 is made in one day that there are as many birds as formerly 

 killed in any one season. Be this as it may, our method of 

 covert shooting is now very much in favour of the woodcocks. 

 Formerly, when they were the principal game of the coverts, the 

 latter used to be beaten as often as it was believed there were 

 woodcocks in them. Now this is by no means the case. 

 Coverts are beaten once, twice, or thrice in a season, and times 

 are fixed with no regard whatever to the woodcocks. If it is 

 an open season, the inland woodcocks are likely enough to be 

 there when the date for pheasant shooting comes ; but if hard 

 frost has set in the birds will have gone on to the west coasts of 

 Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and possibly also many may have 

 passed on into Spain. Then we say it is a bad season in 

 England for woodcocks, but that is merely because we beat our 

 coverts after the bird has flown. Still, possibly the best season 

 for woodcocks in England is that which most favours the killing 

 and also the preservation of the birds, if that is not paradoxical. 

 When they are found all over the country in mild winters, they 



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