290 MANUAL FOR YOTJNG SPORTSMEN. 



I therefore advise all young shooters, who desire to 

 become good shots and good sportsmen, always to go into 

 covert, even the worst covert, with their dogs ; to keep as 

 close to their dogs, and make the dogs keep as close to 

 them, as possible ; never to allow their dogs to flush, but 

 always to put up their game for themselves ; never to let 

 their dogs do wrongly, without rebuke ; and above all, never 

 to do wrongly themselves, for the sake of bagging a bird 

 or two the more. 



For every easy shot that the beginner will lose, he will 

 be the gainer by so much as he learns to kill a difficult 

 shot; and as the American woodcock, in the open, flushed 

 over dogs, is as easy a shot as any that flies, so even 

 thick covert cannot make him a very difficult shot. 



The only advantage that I can perceive in summer 

 woodcock-shooting is, that it does unquestionably teach one 

 how to kill snap shots, and to bring down birds, firing at 

 them unseen, by calculation, in a style which can hardly 

 be acquired in any other school. 



Summer woodcock almost invariably fly straight, rising 

 gradually till they have topped the bushes, if in close 

 covert, and then go away nearly in a horizontal line, until 

 they choose to alight. Their method of doing this is 

 peculiar ; they never gradually decline, lowering and lower- 

 ing their flight as they near the earth, like the quail, nor 

 pitch down at an acuter angle from their original line of 

 flight, like the snipe ; but invariably make a short, quick 

 zigzag turn to right or left, and then dart downward in an 

 instant, and run off swiftly five or six yards, before tluy 

 settle either to feeding or to lie up. 



