294 MANUAL FOB YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



heard tatt stories of great sport had in cornfields, I have 

 yet got to see it. 



For the rest, when woodcock are not to be found in 

 one sort of ground, they must be looked for in another, 

 and are sometimes found most plentiful in what we should 

 probably, at first sight, pronounce the most unlikely. 



Patience and perseverance are the only sure means of 

 obtaining ultimate success, and after all the best teaching 

 in the world, a few grains of hard-earned experience are 

 worth the whole of it. This is the great charm and 

 delight of field-sports, that the longer one pursues them, 

 the more he learns of their theory as well as their practice ; 

 and that the more he learns, the more he finds that he has 

 yet to learn. 



Each new fact discovered points some new principle to 

 be investigated, and paves the way to some yet newer dis- 

 covery; so that of them it may be truly said, with but a 

 little variation, what Enobarbus said of Cleopatra, 



" Age cannot wither them, nor custom stale 

 Their infinite variety." 



In proof of which it only needs here to say, that when 

 we again come to speak of the woodcock in the maturity of 

 his birdhood, in the lusty days of autumn, we shall speak 

 of a different biped alogether, and one who, instead of 

 being an easy victim to every owner of a five-dollar pop- 

 gun, will give work to a nimble finger, a sure eye, and a 

 trusty gun, and confer lustre on the sportsman who can 

 bring him to bag unerringly, in style. 



All the rules given above in regard to decorum, and 



