WOODCOCK-SHOOTING. 
In every part of the North American States and Provinces 
where the American woodcock, lately classed as scolopax 
minor, but more recently erected by naturalists into a 
distinct family as microptera Americana, breeds and 
rears its young, law, and custom where there are no specific 
laws on the subject, have authorized the killing it on the 
first or fourth of July. 
There is probably not a single sportsman in the coun- 
try, who does not deprecate the practice, and desire to see 
it abolished; but, in the first place, it appears to be impossi- 
ble to get legislative assemblies to look upon game laws 
in any other light than that of class legislation, statutes 
intended to guard the amusements of the few against the 
rights of the many, than which no idea can be more erro- 
