WOODCOCK-SHOOTING. 205 



deliberation in shooting, and avoidance of danger through 

 rashness and unsteadiness, hold good here ; and in no shoot- 

 ing is it more necessary to hold straight than it is in 

 snmmer cock-shooting, when your mark is there but for a 

 second, and then gone. 



It has been and probably will always continue a matter 

 of doubt and dispute among sportsmen, what becomes of 

 the woodcock at the period of his moult, which occurs — 

 happily for the continuance of the breed, since otherwise 

 they would be exterminated within a single year — imme- 

 diately after the first month of summer shooting ; say 

 early in August ; after which they vanish from their usual 

 haunts, and are to be found neither in upland nor in low- 

 land, until the early frosts bring them back full grown and 

 full feathered in time for autumn shooting. 



My opinion remains unchanged on this subject, since 

 first I wrote on it, above twenty years ago, that there is 

 an actual migration of the birds yet farther northward. 

 That some few birds linger in wet spots and in moist corn- 

 fields is true ; but to maintain that all the thousands of 

 cock, which are found here in the fall, remain all the sea- 

 son under our noses in the maize fields, is simply absurd. 

 Those who desire to investigate the subject may look to 

 my Field Sports, vol. 1, p. 191. 



