WARWICK WOODLANDS. 12^ 



the way, I quite agree with you. But I don't want to 

 lose the rest of your lucubrations on this most interesting- 

 topic. What do you think becomes of the birds in August, 

 after the moult begins?" 



"Verily, Commodore, that is a positive poser. Many 

 good sportsmen believe that they remain where they were 

 before; getting into the thickest and wettest brakes, re- 

 fusing to rise before the dog, and giving out little or no 

 scent !" 



"Do you believe this?" 



"N^o ; I believe there is a brief migration, but whither I 

 cannot tell you with any certainty. Some birds do stay, 

 as they assert; and that a few do stay, and do give out 

 enough scent to enable dogs to find them, is a proof to me 

 that all do not. A good sportsman can always find a few 

 birds even during the motdt, and I do not think that 

 birds killed at that time are at all worse eating than 

 others. But I am satisfied that the great bulk shift their 

 quarters, whither I have not yet fully ascertained; but I 

 believe to the small runnels and deep swales which are 

 found throughout all the mountain tracts of the middle 

 States ; and in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed 

 and scattered in such small parties that they are not 

 worth looking after, till the frost drives them down to 

 their old haunts. A gentleman, whom I can depend on, 

 told me once that he climbed Bull Hill one year late in 

 September — Bull Hill is one of the loftiest peaks in the 

 Highlands of the Hudson — merely to show the prospect 

 to a friend, and he found all the brushwood on the summit 

 full of fine autumn cock, not a bird having been seen for 

 weeks in the low woodlands at the base. They had no 

 guns with them at the time, and some days elapsed before 

 he could again spare a few hours to hunt them up; in the 

 meantime frost came, the birds returned to their accus- 

 tomed swamps and levels, and, when he did again scale 

 the rough mountain, not a bird rewarded his trouble. 

 This, if true, which I do not doubt, would go far to prove 

 my theory correct; but it is not easy to arrive at absolute 

 certainty, for if I am right, during that period birds are 

 to be found no where in abundance, and a man must be a 

 downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking 

 — the hardest walking in the world, by the way — purely 



