SCOLOPACID^. 
U'Z 
instance except in tlie case of the woodcock and snipe, of the former of which 414, 
and of the latter 1,310, head were bagged.] 
“ But after all, the cock-shooting, even in Ireland, is hardly to be compared to 
what is to be met with in some other parts of the world. For instance, Sir Hyde 
Parker, in a letter to me dated June 10th, 1844, when speaking of a trip to the 
Mediterranean, from whence he had recently returned in his yacht, says, — ‘ We 
killed 450 cocks in ten days, and the party who preeeded us killed 650 in the same 
number of days.’ Great as was the slaughter described by the baronet, it was 
equalled by Messrs. Oxenden and Berkeley. From a printed list sent me by the 
former, it appears these gentlemen bagged, in twenty -one days’ shooting in the 
Morea, 862 woodcocks ; — their best day was eighty.” 
Woodcocks may, on the whole, be stated to have become gra- 
dually scarcer with the improvement of the country and increase 
of population ; but in some seasons there is a considerable increase 
to the ordinary numbers : the last in which this occurred was 
the winter of 1837-38. In the month of January about 100 
brace were obtained by occasional shooting in ToUymore 
Park, county Down, the seat of the Earl of Eoden; and the 
gamekeeper considers that he saw as many as eighty brace in one 
day :* — 130 brace fell to the gun of the Hon. John L. Cole, at 
Florence Court (Fermanagh) and Hazlewoodf (Sligo) ; thirty 
brace being shot before Christmas, and the remainder in February. 
In the neighbourhood of Belfast also, more were seen late in the 
season than had been for many years : at the termination of a 
severe frost towards the end of January, great numbers were on sale 
in the shops of the town. About Downpatrick, too, they were said 
to have been abundant during the frost. Throughout that win- 
ter, indeed, they were particularly plentiful in the shops at Bel- 
fast ; but the supply was said to have been derived from the 
neighbouring Scotch counties of Ayr and Wigton. 
Mr. Bell, many years gamekeeper at Shanes-Castle Park (Antrim), 
* In the severe snow-storm of 1827, three gentlemen on a visit here, and not 
going out before noon, killed and bagged seventy- live brace in three days ; as they 
did not look after wounded birds, many more which had fallen by their guns were 
afterwards picked up. 
The gamekeeper has, Avith a brace of pointers, shot eight brace during a forenoon 
in the heath skirting the plantations of the park ; within which, aided by a boy to 
beat the covers, he has obtained ten brace in the same time. 
t A few winters previously (as I learn from Lord Enniskillen) sixty-live brace 
were killed at Hazlewood by three guns, in as many days. 
