THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
where plentiful supplies of worms and aquatic insects can be readily 
obtained. 
(2) Warmth and shelter; the model covert should have every sort of 
shelter, including hollies, laurels, bracken, young larch, heather, gorse 
(which is a favourite in very hard weather), oak scrub, and hazel of different 
ages of growth, and the underwood should be kept properly thinned and 
not allowed to grow too high. Rhododendrons are also favoured by wood- 
cocks. In addition to the above, if the covert springs from limestone rocks, 
these will be found to provide warmth and shelter in their crannies, and 
comparative dryness in wet weather, which will be much appreciated. I 
have often seen woodcocks issuing apparently from the bowels of the 
earth when crossing certain almost bare stretches of limestone rocks in 
Ireland. 
(3) A third and very important desideratum for a good woodcock wood 
is quiet. Having been feeding all night, they like to rest in peace and 
quiet during the day, and resent being continually disturbed by a lot of 
pheasants constantly moving about, or even rabbits, not to mention a 
keeper whistling up his pheasants several times a day for their food. 
In the returns which Lord Hastings has kindly sent, one of his coverts, 
Swanton Wood, used to be famous for woodcocks, but when pheasants 
were turned down in large numbers the ’cock, to a great extent, deserted 
it, and it is only in recent years, when pheasants have not been so much 
encouraged in this particular wood, that they have returned to their old 
haunts.* 
Again, to quote Ballykine, which is, taking it all round, far and away 
the best “ ’cock ” covert in the British Isles, pheasants are treated almost 
as vermin there, and Lord Ardilaun has always been very particular about 
keeping his coverts as quiet as possible during the winter months. 
An old keeper at Markree, in the West of Ireland, told me that there had 
never been so many ’cock in the great covert there since the practice of 
grazing cattle all round the outside in the early autumn had been given 
up, after which the outskirts were kept quiet. 
The West of England used to be famous for woodcocks ; in Scott’s ‘ ‘ British 
Field Sports” (1828) it is stated: “The neighbourhood of Torrington, 
Devon, used to be celebrated for them early in the nineteenth century. 
One dealer supplying them to London to the value of nearly two thousand 
* This applies also to Boconnoch, Mr Bevill Fortescue’s property in Cornwall, where, in 1865, they killed 203 wood- 
cocks. But at the present time, 1911-12, partly owing to pheasants being reared in much greater numbers, and partly, 
no doubt, to an indifferent season, only 50 or so have been killed. 
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