WOODCOCK HUNTING IN NEW YORK 



STATE 



By L. B. COOPER 

 Illustrated by the Author 



O O D woodcock 

 shooting in the Mid- 

 dle States, and espe- 

 cially in New York 

 State, is rapidly be- 

 coming a thing of 

 the past. Nowadays 

 when a sports- 

 man goes out for a day's hunt, no mat- 

 ter how good his dog may be, if he 



son, then perhaps we ought to realize 

 one great reason why our choice little 

 game-bird is becoming scarcer every 

 year. 



This fact has really been quite no- 

 ticeable for the past few years, through 

 the central part of New York State, 

 where I have regularly, each fall, vis- 

 ited some ideal woodcock cover. 



This year I have been shooting over 



SUSPICION 



brings home even a few woodcocks he 

 is considered lucky, and even then he 

 will generally bring home all that he 

 has seen. So that now our day's sport 

 in the woods is mostly dependent upon 

 the wily old grouse, who very often 

 allures even the best of our sportsmen. 

 It is now generally considered by 

 the majority of naturalists and sports- 

 men that the woodcock are fast becom- 

 ing extinct, and a sad thing, too, it is 

 to believe ; however, when we stop to 

 consider that they simply run the 

 gantlet from the State of Maine to 

 the Gulf, and from September to April, 

 a hunter can go into one State or an- 

 other where he will find an open sea- 



a pointer clog who seems particularly 

 keen for the woodcock scent, and this, 

 as every good sportsman knows, is no 

 common thing, even though a dog may 

 be excellent on quail and partridge ; but 

 however good your dog is, if the birds 

 are scarce your shooting will be like- 

 wise. So, this year, when some re- 

 nowned old haunts were visited, the re- 

 sult was that only an occasional stray 

 bird was flushed, and that laying so 

 close that often the dog's ability was 

 doubted until that unmistakable whist- 

 ling of wings was heard, when our 

 feathered friend arose to the tops of 

 the alders, and then dropped zigzag- 

 ingly down only a short distance away, 



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