128 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



for the sake of learning the habits of friend Scolopax, with 

 no hope of getting a good bag after all." 



"How late have you ever killed a cock previous to their 

 great southern flight?" 



"Never myself beyond the fifteenth of November; but 

 Tom Draw assures me, and his asseveration was accidently 

 corroborated by a man who walked along with him, that 

 he killed thirty birds last year in Hell-hole, which both of 

 you fellows know, on the thirteenth of December. There 

 had been a very severe frost indeed, and the ice on that 

 very morning was quite thick, and the mud frozen hard 

 enough to bear in places. But the day was warm, bright, 

 and genial, and, as he says, it came into his head to see 

 'if cock was all gone,' and he went to what he knew to be 

 the latest ground, and found the very heaviest and finest 

 birds he ever saw !" 



"Oh! that of course," said A , "if he found any! 



Did you ever hear of any other bird so late?" 



"Yes! later — Mike Sandford, I think, but some Jersey- 

 man or other — killed d. <iouple the day after Christmas 

 day, on a long southern slope covered with close dwarf 

 cedars, and watered by some tepid springs, not far from 

 Pine Brook ; and I have been told that the rabbit shooters, 

 who always go out in a party between Christmas and New 

 Year's day, almost invariably flush a bird or two there 

 in mid-winter. The same thing is told of a similar situa- 

 tion on the south-western slope of Staten Island; and I 

 believe truly in both instances. These, however, must, I 

 think, he looked upon not as cases of late emigration, 

 but as rare instances of the bird wintering here to the 

 northward; which I doubt not a few do annually. I 

 should like much to know if there is any State of the 

 Union where the cock is perennial. I do not see why he 

 should not be so in Maryland or Delaware, though I have 

 never heard it stated so to be. The great heat of the 

 extreme southern summer drives them north, as surely as 

 our northern winter sends them south; and the great 

 emigrations of the main flight are northward in February 

 and March, and southward in November, varying by a 

 few days only according to the variations of the seasons !" 



"Well, I trust they have not emigrated hence yet — ha ! 

 ha! ha!" laughed the Commodore, with his peculiar 

 hearty, deep-toned merriment. 



