264 ON SURREY HILLS. 



feeding-places on the moors below, some glade that 

 they will shoot through, right down to the moist 

 ground. Here, in my own time, nets would be hung 

 in such a manner that the birds would dash into them 

 and get captured like flies in a spider's net. Springes 

 of various kinds were also used for their capture ; but 

 I gather from what the old people of the locality have 

 told me, that the " cockshoots " were the more suc- 

 cessful. The shoots have vanished as well as those 

 who worked them ; the name only is left. 



The same method, only on a much larger scale, is 

 employed for the capture of wild-fowl — the wading 

 tribes especially — on some of the flats of our sea-coasts. 

 Vast numbers are taken in this way, if those who set 

 the nets get to them before the gulls and the hooded 

 crows do. All waders can swim if they are pushed to 

 it ; the woodcock paddles occasionally. One thing it 

 is now certain he does, he carries the young to and 

 fro from the nest to the feeding-grounds. The female 

 alone has been credited with this feat ; but I believe 

 both parents do the carrying. A woodcock chick is 

 so small, the weight would be nothing. Still it is 

 wonderful that it should be done at all. 



In quiet places the mother and her chicks feed by 



