258 SHORE BIRDS 



the woods, and stooping to examine tlie ground for 

 borings I put up a cock and soon flushed several 

 more. In a short stroll we flushed eighteen or twenty 

 birds. A few days later I returned with the gun, 

 accompanied by a small boy from the farm and the 

 farm dog, a large black animal, with a white tip at the 

 end of his tail, which had some pointer blood, but 

 absolutely no training. In a few hours I succeeded in 

 making a very fair bag of birds. The ground was 

 overgrown with tall horse -weeds, festooned with 

 creeping vines, and shaded by the heavy foliage of 

 large trees. Many smaller willows stood along the 

 race and it was by no means an easy place to shoot. 

 I returned often to this ground and always met with 

 some success in the afternoon, but usually found no 

 birds in the morning. In fact, I shot most of my birds 

 late in the afternoon, and was convinced that they 

 were more easily found when the feeding time ap- 

 proached and the birds began to move about. I 

 would advise sportsmen when shooting other game in 

 the vicinity of a likely cock cover, to reserve that for 

 the afternoon, since I am firmly convinced more birds 

 will be found then, than in the morning. 



I once made a trip especially for woodcock to some 

 splendid ground south of Fort Wayne, Indiana. We 

 started on the opening day (July 4th) and had a spe- 

 cial car and engine at our disposal which moved us 

 from one wet woodland to another, and we succeeded 

 in making fair bags each day. We would have done 

 better had not others been shooting ahead of us out of 

 season, as was evidenced by the empty shells which 

 were scattered everywhere in the woods. The wild 



