AUTUMN SHOOTING. 827 
plumage, in prime condition, a large, plump bird, with a 
ruffed neck, a fair gray forehead, and pink legs, weighing 
from eight to nine and a half ounces on an average, and 
sometimes exceeding the latter weight by one or even two 
ounces. 
He is, also, as different a bird to shoot now, from what 
he was in July, as if he were of another race. Even be- 
fore setters, instead of flapping up lazily like a half-awak- 
ened owl by daylight, he springs sharply with a clear ring- 
ing whistle, darts upward through the tree-tops, and often 
makes two or three quick zigzags like a wild-flushed snipe, 
before settling on his flight. Among saplings I have seen 
autumn cock twist worse, and have found them more 
difficult to kill, than the wildest spring snipe I have ever 
shot, especially if they have been raised by a beater, or by 
spaniels, when they will dart hither and thither like bullets 
through the leafless trees. It is only quick and slashing 
snap shots that will fetch them, and sometimes the very 
best shots will unavoidably miss, from the bird dropping 
suddenly three or four feet with a jerking twist at the very 
point of time when the trigger is drawn; so that, no matter 
how true the aim, the charge must go over him. . 
In marking him, the same rules are to be observed now 
as in summer shooting; but whereas he then rarely flew 
fifty yards, or went out of sight, he will now soar away 
half a mile, leave the wood he is flushed in, and perhaps 
fly across a valley or a dozen open fields, and drop on a 
ferny hill-side, or in a single willow bush by some lonely 
spring. 
Nothing can be said, with certainty, I believe, con- 
