994 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
heard fall stories of great sport had in cornfields, I have 
yet got to see it. 
For the rest, when woodcock are not to be found in 
one sort of ground, they must be looked for in another, 
and are sometimes found most plentiful in what we should 
probably, at first sight, pronounce the most unlikely. 
Patience and perseverance are the only sure means of 
obtaining ultimate success, and after all the best teaching 
in the world, a few grains of hard-earned experience are 
worth the whole of it. This is the great charm and 
delight of field-sports, that the longer one pursues them, 
the more he learns of their theory as well as their practice ; 
and that the more he learns, the more he finds that he has 
yet to learn. 
Each new fact discovered points some new principle to 
be investigated, and paves the way to some yet newer dis- 
covery; so that of them it may be truly said, with but a 
little variation, what Enobarbus said of Cleopatra, 
“ Age cannot wither them, nor custom stale 
Their infinite variety.” 
In proof of which it only needs here to say, that when 
we again come to speak of the woodcock in the maturity of 
his birdhood, in the lusty days of autumn, we shall speak 
of a different biped alogether, and one who, instead of 
being an easy victim to every owner of a five-dollar pop- 
gun, will give work to a nimble finger, a sure eye, and a 
trusty gun, and confer lustre on the sportsman who can 
bring him to bag unerringly, in style. . 
All the rules given above in regard to decorum, and 
