242 scolopacid^e. 



instance except in the case of the woodcock and snipe, of the former of which 414, 

 and of the latter 1,310, head were bagged.] 



" But after all, the cock-shooting, even in Ireland, is hardly to be compared to 

 what is to be met with in some other parts of the world. For instance, Sir Hyde 

 Parker, in a letter to me dated June 10th, 1844, when speaking of a trip to the 

 Mediterranean, from whence he had recently returned in his yacht, says, — 'We 

 killed 450 cocks in ten days, and the party who preceded us killed 650 in the same 

 number of days.' Great as was the slaughter described by the baronet, it was 

 equalled by Messrs. Oxenden and Berkeley. From a printed list sent me by the 

 former, it appears these gentlemen bagged, in twenty-one days' shooting in the 

 Morea, 862 woodcocks ; — their best day was eighty." 



Woodcocks may, on the whole, be stated to have become gra- 

 dually scarcer with the improvement of the country and increase 

 of population ; but in some seasons there is a considerable increase 

 to the ordinary numbers : the last in which this occurred was 

 the winter of 1837-38. In the month of January about 100 

 brace were obtained by occasional shooting in Tollymore 

 Park, county Down, the seat of the Earl of Eoden; and the 

 gamekeeper considers that he saw as many as eighty brace in one 

 day :* — 130 brace fell to the gun of the Hon. John L. Cole, at 

 Florence Court (Fermanagh) and Hazlewoodf (Sligo) ; thirty 

 brace being shot before Christmas, and the remainder in February. 

 In the neighbourhood of Belfast also, more were seen late in the 

 season than had been for many years : at the termination of a 

 severe frost towards the end of January, great numbers were on sale 

 in the shops of the town. About Downpatrick, too, they were said 

 to have been abundant during the frost. Throughout that win- 

 ter, indeed, they were particularly plentiful in the shops at Bel- 

 fast ; but the supply was said to have been derived from the 

 neighbouring Scotch counties of Ayr and Wigton. 



Mr. Bell, many years gamekeeper at Shanes-Castle Park (Antrim), 



* In the severe snow-storm of 1827, three gentlemen on a visit here, and not 

 going out before noon, killed and bagged seventy-five brace in three days ; as they 

 did not look after wounded birds, many more which had fallen by their guns were 

 afterwards picked up. 



The gamekeeper has, with a brace of pointers, shot eight brace during a forenoon 

 in the heath skirting the plantations of the park ; within which, aided by a boy to 

 beat the covers, he has obtained ten brace in the same time. 



f A few winters previously (as I learn from Lord Enniskillen) sixty-five brace 

 were lulled at Hazlewood by three guns, in as many days. 



