THE WOODCOCK, 317 
retrieving the bird. The best time for making a big bag of 
woodcocks is the mating period, as the males may then 
be readily seen against the starlit sky, when they rise to 
hover and to serenade the gentle sex with their hoarse 
song of ‘‘ bisweet, bisweet, crock wauk.” Very large bags 
are rarely made, however, owing to the scarcity of the 
birds, and the difficulty of getting fair shots at them. 
Ten couples a day is considered good work even when 
they are comparatively numerous, but I have heard of 
persons who were said to have bagged twenty couples 
in that time. The ordinary charge used in woodcock 
shooting is two and a half drachms of powder and an 
ounce of No. 10 or 12 shot. 
Woodcocks are very numerous in Florida and Texas 
during the winter, being frequenters of the banks of 
every lagoon where food can be procured. The negroes 
often kill large numbers by “ fire-hunting ” them at night, 
as all they have to do is to knock them on the head with 
clubs. I was out with a party one night in Florida which 
killed five, but they were satisfied with the bag, as it was 
better—a very little better—than nothing. 
The best month for woodcock shooting in the Middle 
and Western States is July, as the old and young are then 
in cover along the courses of streams and the bottom 
lands. They are supposed to go to the high grounds in 
the month of August while they are moulting, and to re- 
turn to their regular feeding grounds at night, only to 
leave them again before daybreak. It is quite a common 
belief that they only seek for food during the night, but 
it is evident that they also feed in the daytime, as some 
have been shot as late as three P. M. with worms in their 
mouths, they not having had time to swallow them be- 
fore being killed. They descend to the cornfields in Sep- 
tember, and work diligently wherever the soil 1s soft and 
damp, and remain there unless they are disturbed. To 
make much of a bag then, a person must use a stool to 
