318 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
past two or three years they seem to have been rapidly 
increasing, a result, no doubt, of their protection in 
summer over most of the country. 
It is interesting to recall the days of woodcock shoot- 
ing a generation ago and to compare their results with 
those of recent times. For the past few years many 
a gunner who devoted a week or ten days to faithful 
tramping and shooting in eastern covers has thought 
himself fortunate if in that time he killed three or 
four woodcock. An item published in Forest and 
Stream in 1874 speaks of three gunners who went out 
early in the summer season and in one day killed sixty- 
four woodcock. Twenty, twenty-five and thirty a day 
were ordinary records for a single gun, and in No- 
vember, 1876, we recall an account by a friend of a 
day’s shooting which yielded him twenty-six woodcock 
besides a less number of partridges and quail. \ 
