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so that they cannot penetrate the ground with their long bills, they change their 
feeding ground, getting into the marshes and wet places, and at length occupy 
chiefly the valleys of the larger streams where the tall corn and rank weeds and 
bushes afford a shelter, and the rich soft mud abounds in the insects which they love. 
Here they are sheltered from observation and pursuit, and no one would be aware 
of their presence unless he came directly upon them, or heard the whistle of their 
wings, in the dusk of the evening or the morning, as they move from one feeding 
ground to another. Early in the fall the woodcock moves southerly to his winter 
quarters— though single birds are sometimes fornd as late as November ; a few 
will remain during the whole season along spring branches and other moist places 
in the vicinity of their breeding grounds, and there are some extensive marshes 
in the State where they are found in considerable numbers, but the greater part 
have left their early quarters for inaccessible haunts long before the present law 
allows them to be shot. Lying quietly in unfrequented places, rarely taking wing 
by day unless di-turbed — and feeding and migrating by night— changing their 
grounds suddenly for others far distant, they are in little danger from the sports- 
man in Ohio. Their killing after the fourth of July will not endanger a tithe of 
the number bred in the State. If their numbers decrease at all, it will not be 
from the gun, but the opening up, ditching and drying out of our wet lands, where 
only they can subsist. 
The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the 
vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in 
search of food, it is here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow, and no ordinary 
destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly pro- 
duced. 
The snipe (< Scolopax Wilsonii) needs no protection. It does not breed in Ohio, 
but merely tarries awhile in its migrations to and from its breeding grounds in the 
extreme north. During the month of April it is often plenty in wet meadows and 
ether moist places, and furnishes good sport and a choice morsel for the table. 
As the woodcock and the snipe both lie closely, especially when approached, they 
can rarely be seen till they take wing, and are only in danger from the practiced 
sportsman. The snipe, too, like the pigeon, will take care of itself, and its yearly 
numbers cannot be materially lessened by the gun. 
The wild goose does not, perhaps, need general protection, though if any linger 
here till near breeding time they should be spared. It may not be generally 
known that large numbers often winter in the vast cornfields on the Scioto river, in 
Southern Ohio, but they are approached with difficulty, and rarely killed. 
The summer, or wpod duck ( anas sponaa), breeds in various places in Ohio, 
and should be spared from April to September. This is probably the only duck 
