44 
WOODCOCK SNIPE. Cuass If. 
carrying them from us in spring. If the wind 
be propitious, they are gone immediately; but 
if contrary, they are detained in the neighbor- 
ing woods, or among the ling and furze on the 
coast. It is in this crisis that the sportsman 
finds extraordinary diversion: the whole coun- 
try around echoes with the discharge of guns ; 
even seventeen brace have been killed by one 
person in a day: but if they are kept any time 
on the dry heaths, they become so lean, that they 
are a prey hardly worth pursuing, at lest eating. 
The instant a fair wind springs up, they seize 
the opportunity, and where the sportsman has 
seen hundreds one day, he will not find a single 
bird the next. As this extraordinary diversion — 
depends on the winds, it must necessarily be 
precarious ; and it accordingly sometimes hap- 
pens, that the sportsmen on the coast, for some 
years together, know not precisely the time of 
the Woodcocks’ departure. They have the same 
harbingers (the Redwings) in spring, as in au- 
tumn.”’ | 
In the same manner we know they. quit 
France, Germany, and Italy ; making the north- 
ern and cold situations their general summer 
rendezvous. They visit Burgundy the latter 
end of October, but continue there only four 
or five weeks; it being a dry country they are 
