120 FEATHERED GAME 
rels as they come up and effectually blocking 
any further proceedings until too late. Often 
the birds are trotting comfortably about in a 
growth of alders where a dog can scarcely 
penetrate, much less a sportsman do good work. 
In such places, before the frosts have taken the 
summer’s heat from the still air of the woods, 
woodcocking is likely to be very warm business, 
but when the colder weather has driven them 
from their summer homes in the bogs of Labra- 
dor and the bracing northwest winds come down 
with their promise of more cold to follow, there 
are few shooting trips pleasanter than a day in 
the woodecock covers. Many a gray-headed 
veteran follows the sport as eagerly now as he 
did thirty, aye, forty years agone, when he made 
his first essay. I call to mind one poor fellow 
who went out for just one more try at the birds 
—he was seventy-one—and his summons came 
to him alone in the woods where next day they 
found him peacefully asleep. He had had good 
luck, his game-bag was full of woodcocks, and 
his face was as happy as a child’s. 
Probably woodcock shooting is the most popu- 
lar sport with the gun which is followed in New 
England, yet why it should rank before grouse- 
