284 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



the Co. Kerry, the year Lord Elcho resided at 

 Muckross, Killarney, the party, averaging five 

 guns, shot in ten days 840 cocks, and during that 

 winter (1863-1864) 1250 were killed on the estate. 

 On Lord Ardilaun's estate at Ashford, Co. Galway, 

 the woodcock-shooting is famous. Here, on a 

 day in January, five guns bagged 106 birds ; and 

 six guns 350 cock in a week. On the two best 

 days of this week there were killed respectively 

 117 and 115 birds. In January 1880 six guns 

 killed 365 cock in four days, killing on one day 165, 

 and on another 82 birds. According to Sir 

 R. Payne Gallwey, from whose excellent work, 

 The Fowler in Ireland, these figures are quoted, 

 " from three to four hundred cock is a good yearly 

 averagfe on a favoured estate in Ireland ; but in 

 exceptionally good seasons this number may be 

 nearly doubled." 



It is generally supposed that woodcocks on 

 their arrival here are lean and out of condition, 

 Lieut-Colonel Cuppage, in The Field of 6th April 

 1872, reported having seen a flight of about 100 

 woodcocks arriving on the north coast of Ireland in 

 an exhausted state. He caught several and found 

 them to be in such poor condition that he released 

 them. But this is not always so. Sir. R. Payne 

 Gallwey states that, out of hundreds which he 

 examined during the exceptionally long and severe 

 winter of 1 880-1 881, only a dozen were small and 

 poor birds, and at the end of the frost he picked 

 out three birds, each of which weighed exactly 16 

 oz., a fourth weighing \Z\ oz. These must have 



