WOODCOCK SNIPE. Class II. 



carrying them from us in spring. If the wind 

 be propitious, they are gone immediately; but 

 if contrary, they are detained in the neighbor- 

 ing woods, or among the ling and furze on the 

 coast. It is in this crisis that the sportsman 

 finds extraordinary diversion : the whole coun- 

 try around echoes Avith the discharge of guns ; 

 even seventeen brace have been killed by one 

 person in a day : but if they are kept any time 

 on the dry heaths, they become so lean, that they 

 are a prey hardly worth pursuing, at lest eating. 

 The instant a fair wind springs up, they seize 

 the opportunity, and where the sportsman has 

 seen hundreds one day, he will not find a single 

 bird the next. As this extraordinary diversion 

 depends on the winds, it must necessarily be 

 precarious ; and it accordingly sometimes hap- 

 pens, that the sportsmen on the coast, for some 

 years together, know not precisely the time of 

 the Woodcocks' departure. They have the same 

 harbingers (the Redwings) in spring, as in au- 

 tumn." 



In the same manner we know they quit 

 France, Germany, and Italy ; making the north- 

 ern and cold situations their general summer 

 rendezvous. They visit Burgundy the latter 

 end of October, but continue there only four 

 or five weeks; it being a dry country they are 



