HAUNTS AND HABITS OF THE WOODCOCK. 65 



April 21, 1859, and that gentleman having recorded in 

 his game book 4102 cocks as bagged to his own gun, may- 

 be received as a high authority in this, as indeed in all other 

 departments of the sport : 



" In ordinary weather, unless a cock has already been 

 flushed 011 that day, he sits very close ; but if once flushed, 

 he is difficult of approach in covert ; and if he takes to 

 the heather ' by chance,' you may happen to get a shot at 

 him the second time he is flushed ; but after then you had 

 much better give it up it is only waste of time. Other 

 game birds which I have shot often are brought into sub- 

 jection even the wildest of grouse and black-cocks by 

 perseveringly following and shooting at them. They begin 

 wild and end tame; but the woodcock pursues the other 

 course, beginning tame and ending wild. You shall see 

 grouse, black game, partridges, and woodcocks occasionally 

 flushed by being walked over by cattle or sheep. Of all 

 those the woodcock flies by far the shortest distance in- 

 variably. He appears to consider his having been disturbed 

 an accidental circumstance, and in the first instance takes 

 it as such; but if he has any idea that there is 'any trick 

 in it' he will very soon show you that he is rather better up 

 to tricks than you are. 



" A woodcock is always more difficult of approach in a 

 thaw than in any ordinary weather. The greatest number 

 of woodcocks I ever have seen in a day have been flushed on 

 the first day of a thaw succeeding a long frost. In that 

 weather I often have seen a great many woodcocks. Next 

 day go and hunt the whole country, high and low, and you 

 wont see one cock. In that weather I have been driven 

 home twice in the course of a very short day -wet to the 

 skin from wet snow, almost blinded by a gale of wind in 

 order to wash out my gun, which had frequently missed 

 fire. I think I must have had fifteen or twenty miss-fires. 

 On this occasion I sent twenty-seven woodcocks into the 

 game-larder. I went out next morning and beat the whole 

 country round, high and low land, and did not see the 

 feather of a cock. In similar circumstances I have found it 

 invariably so. 



" I have often heard it remarked that a woodcock is a 



