WOODCOCK-SHOOTING. 295 
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 woodeock 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 ficlds, is simply absurd. 
Those who desire to investigate the subject may look to 
my Field Sports, vol. 1, p. 191. 
