146 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Sporting remarks. 



they become so lean as to be scarcely eatable. 

 The instant a fair wind springs up, they seize the 

 opportunity; and where the sportsman has seen 

 hundreds in one day, he will not find even a sin- 

 gle bird the next. 



This bird, being a very clumsy waddling walker, 

 (as is the case with every kind of fowl having 

 short legs and long wings) when flushed, rises 

 heavily from the ground, and makes a consider- 

 able noise before he can gather wind sufficient 

 for flight. If found in a rushy spot, a ditch, or a 

 hedge-row, from whence he is obliged to present 

 an open mark, he frequently slowly skims over 

 the ground, and is very easily shot, as, indeed, is 

 the case elsewhere, provided only obstruction do 

 not arise from intervening branches of trees and 

 boughs of underwood, which in cock and covert 

 shooting, must always be expected. Woodcocks 

 may be found as well with pointers as with spaniels, 

 (the pointers being hunted in the covert with 

 bells) but cock-shooting with spaniels is almost 

 universally preferred as it is more enlivening to 

 hear the spaniels occasionally in quest, than to pur- 

 sue so pleasing a scene with the solemnity of si- 

 lence. 



Very few woodcocks breed in England ; and 

 perhaps in those that do, it may be owing to their 

 having been so wounded by the sportsmen in the 

 winter, as to be disabled from taking their long 

 journey in spring. They build their nests on the 

 ground, generally at the root of some tree ; and 



