WARWICK WOODLANUS. 105 



"Harder it is, I graut; for it is all, with scarcely an 

 exception, followed iu very thick and heav-y covert — covert 

 to which the thickest woods I ever saw in England are 

 but as open ground. Moreover, the woods are so very 

 large that the gun must be close up with the dog; and 

 consequently the shots must, half of them, be fired in 

 attitudes most awkward, and in ground which would, I 

 think, at home, be generally styled impracticable; thirdly, 

 all the summer shooting here is made with the leaf on — 

 with these thick tangled matted swamps clad in the 

 thickest foliage. 



"Your dogs must beat within twenty yards at farthest, 

 and when they stand you are aware of the fact rather 

 by ceasing to hear their motion, than by seeing them at 

 point; I am satisfied that of six pointed shots in summer 

 shooting, three at the least must be treated as snap shots ! 

 Many birds must be shot at — and many are killed — which 

 are never seen at all, till they are bagged ; and many men 

 here will kill three out of four summer woodcock, day in 

 and day out, where an English sportsman, however crack 

 a shot he might be, would give the thing up in despair in 

 half an hour. 



"Practice, however, soon brings this all to rights. The 

 first season I shot here — I was a very fair, indeed a good, 

 young shot, when I came out hither — not at all crack, 

 but decidedly better than the common run ! — the first day 

 I shot was on 4th of July, 1832, the place Seer's swamp, 

 the open end of it; the witness old Tom Draw — and there 

 I missed, in what we now call, open covert, fourteen birds 

 running; and left the place in despair — I could not, al- 

 though I missed at home by shooting too quick — I could 

 not, for the life of me, shoot quick enough. Even you, 

 Frank, shoot three times as well as you did, when you 

 began here; yet you began in autumn, which is decidedly 

 a great advantage, and came on by degrees, so that the 

 following summer you were not so much nonplussed, 

 though I remember the first dav or two, you bitched it 

 badly." 



"Well, I believe I must knock under, Harry," Forester 

 answered ; "and here comes Timothy with the coffee, and 

 so we will to bed, that taken, though I do want to argufy 

 with you, on some of your other notions about dogs, scent, 



