THE FINDING AND KILLING OF WOODCOCKS. 71 



short thick gorse, and will, as a rule, never fail to find him a 

 second time in covert if they have seen, or have the direction 

 of his flight given them. The dogs I have had, endowed 

 with this faculty, have been generally half-bred, sometimes- 

 between a spaniel and a setter; but they are very few and 

 far between. I think much depends on their having first- 

 rate brains, noses of a ne plus ultra quality of course, carry in g- 

 their heads high in the air, and being entered and kept to cock 

 shooting, and little else, with constant practice ; and I have- 

 observed that the dog that finds the sleeping cock in the 

 way above described, finds him in a similar manner, although 

 he may have been running about the woods feeding all the 

 day, and left a quarter of a mile of trail and scent in his 

 path behind him finds him, that is, not by hunting up his 

 scent, but by a kind of instinct." 



The group which faces this page consists of an old-fashioned 

 Welsh cocker, which closely resembles the Devonshire dog,, 

 both being of a rich liver colour ; and an ordinary liver-and- 

 white cocking spaniel, such as is met with throughout 

 England without any peculiar designation, and variously- 

 bred. Indeed, with the exception of the Welsh and Devon- 

 shire strains, there are no cockers now with any pretensions 

 to purity of blood. 



THE GUN FOR COCKS. 



The ordinary covert gun, as described at page 59, is the 

 weapon which is used for this kind of sport. Cocks do not 

 carry off much lead, and therefore a particularly hard hitter- 

 is not required. Nor is a breech loader so pre-eminently 

 serviceable as in pheasant shooting, because the cocks are 

 not driven up into one corner, as they are in the battue ; 

 still, it is occasionally serviceable, from the power ot loading 

 it more quickly than the muzzle loader. No. 7 is the proper- 

 size of shot. 



THE FINDING AND KILLING OF WOODCOCKS. 



Mr. Colquhoun is so practised a hand not only in finding 

 and killing cocks, but also in describing what he has seen 

 and done, that I cannot do better than let him speak for 

 himself in the matter. He says : 



