THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
they have already paired, or soon will be, and if left unmolested would 
probably breed in far greater numbers than is now the case. 
Ways of cooking a Woodcock : 
(1) Roasted lightly when quite fresh, i.e., the day it is shot. 
(2) Hang it for a week, with trail removed, then shoot another ’cock 
and put the fresh trail inside the one that has been hung. 
(3) Cut its head off and bake it in a dumpling; this is an old fashioned 
receipt, but excellent. 
(4) Woodcock pie ; the birds must be boned, and all the trails put in the 
pie. Few are worthy of this dish, and fewer get the opportunity to appre- 
ciate its excellence. 
It is the almost universal custom, in England at any rate, to pull a 
woodcock’s legs, in order to extract the sinews, which would otherwise 
make the thigh tough; this rather spoils the appearance of the birds, 
and the same end may be effected by pulling the middle toe, to which the 
said sinew is attached. The same remark applies to pheasants; one of the 
most intelligent gourmets we know always pulls the sinews from those 
hen pheasants that he selects for his own consumption. 
Many friends and acquaintances who are the happy possessors of good 
’cock coverts, having kindly sent their experiences of different kinds, 
they are here given in alphabetical order. 
ASHFORD, CO. GALWAY 
Lord Ardilaun, who is the owner of Ashford — undoubtedly the best 
woodcock estate in the British Isles — has kindly sent some notes with 
regard to his bags of woodcock. Before mentioning them it may be of 
interest to give a short description of this bird’s model winter home. 
Situated on the shores of Lough Corrib, the estate extends to Lough Mask, 
the country principally consists of limestone rocks, with patches of grass 
and cultivated land cropping up here and there. Along the shores of both 
loughs are several bogs, which give good feeding ground, whilst there is a 
great extent of covert, some of it old hazel, and much of it larch in different 
stages of growth; the latter has been all planted by the present owner. On 
the south and west sides the high rocky mountains and numerous small 
bogs of Joyce’s country and Mayo afford extensive feeding ground in 
the early autumn, and it is only when these hills are covered with snow, 
or lashed by hail storms, that the woodcocks in large numbers seek the 
shelter of the coverts below them. 
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