284 MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



Now woodcock invariably return year after year, if 

 unmolested, to the same wood to breed, as do salmon to 

 the same river. Therefore it follows, that if, year after 

 year, nine tenths of all the birds, old and young, are shot 

 off, as they invariably are in the present system of sum- 

 mer shooting, the breeding stock must in the end be 

 wholly cut off, and the race must become extinct. 



Nor is this theory ; for it is proved too true by experi- 

 ence ; and over vast tracts of country, where woodcock 

 swarmed some twenty years since, an ostrich is now a 

 scarce less likely bird, to encounter. 



Moreover, the extreme heat of the season, and the 

 extraordinary difficulty of preserving the birds when killed, 

 in fit condition for the table, renders July shooting not 

 only irksomely laborious, but useless. 



The only reason that can be adduced for persevering in 

 this destructive and foolish law, is the plea, that, if wood- 

 cock shooting in July were abolished, there would be no 

 July shooting of any kind. Be it so ! we can conceive it 

 possible for the most ardent of sportsmen to exist one 

 month in the year, or say two, for February is almost 

 equally barred out with July, without shooting, especially 

 as beating low, swampy woodlands reeking with moist heat 

 and swarming with mosquitoes under a sun at ninety 

 degrees in" the shade, is not altogether what it is cracked 

 up to be ; though very young men may rejoice in it, and 

 very strong men battle through it, day after day, from 

 sunrise unto sunset. 



As it stands, however, law and custom sanctioning it, 



