THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 13 



Once, however, we get any distance from Hills cock only appear as 

 rare stragglers and in these cases it is probable that birds migrating 

 from one range to another are, as the Irishman said of the owl, 

 benighted by day and have to stop where they are until the suc- 

 ceeding sunset. In this way woodcock have been shot in Guddam 

 (Golconda), Kurrachee, Sitapur, Agra, Nynpuri, Cawnpore, Dacca, 

 Rangoon, Tavoy, Calcutta, Madras, Kanara (away from the hills) 

 Taipuo, Bombay and many other places. 



For some reason the woodcock always forms a most fascinating- 

 object of pursuit for the sportsman. It does not matter whether it 

 is a cold, hazy morning in the Welsh coast, a sweltering day in the 

 foot hills of the Himalayas, or a balmy day in the lovely climate of 

 December in the Nilgiris or Khasia Hills ; the owl-like flip-flap of 

 the brown bird's wings brings the same little thrill to the gunner and 

 the soft thud amongst the bracken and bushes in reply to a successful 

 shot brings a feeling of pleasure that is, for some reason, paralleled 

 by the slaughter of no other game bird. 



The haunts of the woodcock are in themselves attractive and one 

 can wander, gun in hand through sombre pine forest, sunlit copse of 

 oak or the dense scrub of an Indian ravine always with a certainty of 

 being interested, whatever the sport may be. There is something in 

 •®ne's surroundings which makes one take an optimistic view of life 

 and it is not until one returns to buildings and the cook has worked his 

 will on the results of the day's bag that one once more remembers 

 that " only man is vile." 



My experience of cock shooting in India, is, unfortunately, practi- 

 cally nil. I have shot a casual cock in the plains of Oachar and of 

 Kamrup and more than occasionally have bagged a brace in North 

 Oachar but I have never had the delight of a long day's trudge through 

 the bracken and pine forests of the Khasia Hills, in which I have 

 now lived so many years. Perhaps the most successful of the many 

 sportsman IShillong has harboured is Major Wilson of the 8th 

 Gurkhas and to him my thanks are due for much information and a 

 most interesting account of his first cock in 1908. He writes " They 

 generally arrive after the 15th of October, (though I see in 1890, I 

 killed one on the 8th) and I generally begin to look for them about 

 that date, this year without result till the 23rd. On that day, I 

 happened to have for my morning parade " Exercise in hill climbing," 



