WOODCOCK AND WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
03 
to sacrifice our knowledge and enlightened views on this 
subject to obstinate ignorance; or shall we not take the 
better part, and decide, according to Minerva’s lesson in 
Tennyson’s magnificent j&none, 
. . . For that right is right to follow right 
Where wisdom is the scorn of consequence. 
We shall resist and persist; at least I shall—I, Frank 
Forester, who never in my life have killed a bird out of 
season intentionally, and who never will—who am compel¬ 
led by sham sportsmen, cockney and pot-gunners to shoot 
woodcock in July; who have been invited, times out and 
over again, to shoot cock o/t men’s own ground, and there¬ 
fore within the letter of the law, iu New Jersey, Penn¬ 
sylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, before the season; 
who have ever refused to take the advantages, which 
every one takes over me ; and who still intend to persist, 
though not to hope, that there maybe sense enough, if not 
integrity, among the legislatures of the free states, to 
prevent the destruction of all game within their several 
jurisdictions. 
As the thing stands—and by the thing I mean the law— 
woodcock are to be shot on or about the first day of July; 
and if, dear reader, you try to shoot any where within fifty 
miles of New York, or twenty-five of Philadelphia, much 
later than the tenth of June, I am inclined to think that you 
will find wonderfully little sport; before the season, do 
not fire a shot, if you will take my advice, if poachers will 
violate the law, and the law will not enforce itself against 
poachers, abstain from becoming a poacher yourself, and 
do not shoot before the season fairly commences. 
At this period of the year woodcock are almost inva¬ 
riably found in the lowlands; sometimes, as, for instance, 
at Salem, in New Jersey, and many other similar localities 
along the low and level shores of the Delaware, in the 
wide, open meadows, where there is not a bush or brake 
to be seen for miles; but more generally in low, swampy 
woods, particularly in maple woods, which have an under¬ 
growth of alder; along the margin of oozy streamlets, 
creeping through moist meadows, among willow thickets; 
and in wet pastures trampled by cattle, and set here and 
there with little brakes, which afford them shade and 
shelter during the heat of the day. 
Of the latter description is the ground, once so famous 
for its summer cock-shooting, known as “ the drowned 
lands,” in Orange County, New York, extending for 
miles and miles along the margins of the Wallkill and its 
tributaries, the Black Creek, the Quaker Creek, and the 
beautiful AVawayanda. Many a day of glorious sport 
have I had on those sweet level meadows, enjoyed with 
friends long since dispersed and scattered, some dead, un¬ 
timely, some in far distant lands, some false, and some 
forgetful, and thou, true-hearted, honest, merry, brave, 
Tom Draw; thou whilom king of hosts and emperor of 
sportsmen, thou, saddest fate of all, smitten, or ere thy 
prime was passed away, by the most fearful visitation that 
awaits mankind—the awful doom of blindness! never 
again shall I draw trigger on those once loved levels— 
the rail-road now thunders and whistles close beside 
them, and every man and boy and fool, now sports his 
fowling-piece ; and not a woodcock on the meadows but, 
after running the gauntlet of a hundred shots, a hundred 
volleys, is consigned to the care of some conductor, by 
him to be delivered to Delmonico or Florence, for the 
benefit of fat, greasy merchant-princes; and if it were not 
so, if birds, swarmed as of yore in every reedy slank, by 
every alder-brake, in every willow tuft, the ground is 
haunted by too many recollections, rife with too many 
thick-succeeding memories to render it a fitting place, to 
me at least, for pleasurable or gay pursuits. 
But, as I have said before, summer cock-shooting on the 
Drowned Lands of Orange County, is among the things 
that have been—one of the stars that has set, never to be 
relumed, in the nineteenth century; and the glory of “ the 
Warwick Woodlands” has departed. 
In Connecticut, in some parts, there is very good sum¬ 
mer cock-shooting yet; and also in many places in the 
neighborhood of Philadelphia, in the rich alluvial levels 
around the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and their tributary 
rivers; but the sportsman, who really thirsts for fine shoot¬ 
ing—shooting such as it does the heart good to hear of— 
must mount the iron-horse, whose breath is the hissing 
steam, and away, fleeter even than the wings of the morn¬ 
ing, for Michigan and Illinois and Indiana, for the willow- 
brakes of Alganac, and the rice-marshes of Lake St. Clair; 
and there he may shoot cock till his gun-barrels are red- 
hot, and his heart is satiate of bird-slaughter. 
It is usual at this season to shoot cock over pointers 
or setters, according to individual preference of this or 
that race of dogs; for myself, of the two, I prefer the 
setter, as in cock-shooting there is always abundance of 
water to be had, and this rough-coated, high-strung dog 
can face brakes and penetrate coverts, which play the 
mischief with the smooth satiny skin of the high-blooded 
pointer. 
In truth, however, neither of these, but the short-legged, 
bony, red and white cocking-spaniel, is the true dog over 
which to shoot summer woodcock; and no one, I will an¬ 
swer for it, who has ever hunted a good cry of these, will 
ever again resort either to setter or pointer for this, to them, 
inappropriate service. 
The true place for these dogs is the open plain, the 
golden stubble, the wide-stretching prairie, the highland 
moor, where they can find full scope for their heady 
courage, their wonderful fleetness, their unwearied indus¬ 
try, and display their miracles of staunchness, steadiness, 
and nose, 
In order to hunt these dogs on cock, you must unteach 
them some of their noblest faculties, you must tame down 
their spirits, shack^ their fiery speed, reduce them, in 
fact, to the functions of the spaniel, which is much what 
it would be to train a battle-charger to bear a pack-saddle, 
or manage an Eclipse into a lady’s ambling palfrey. 
The cocking-spaniel, on the contrary, is here in Ins 
very vocation. Ever industrious, ever busy, never rang¬ 
ing above twenty paces from his master, bustling round 
every stump, prying into every fern-bush, worming his 
long, stout body, propped on its short, bony legs, into the 
densest and most matted cover, no cock can escape him. 
See ! one of them has struck a trail; how he flourishes 
his stump of a tail. Now he snuffs the tainted ground; 
what a rapture fills his dark, expressive eye. Now he is 
certain; he pauses for a moment, looks back to see if his 
master is at hand ; “ Yaff! yaff!” the brakes ring with his 
merry clamor, his comrade rushes to his aid like lightning, 
yet pauses ever, obedient to the whistle, nor presses the 
game too rashly, so that it rise out of distance. Up steps 
the master, with his thumb upon the dexter hammer, and 
his fore-finger on the trigger-guard. Now they are close 
upon the quarry; “yaff! yaff! yaff! yaff!” Flip flap ! up 
springs the cock, with a shrill whistle, on a soaring wing. 
Flip flap ! again—there are a couple. Deliberately prompt, 
up goes the fatal tube—even as the butt presses the 
shoulder, trigger is drawn after trigger. Bang ! bang ! 
the eye of faith and the finger of instinct have done their 
work, duly, truly. The thud of one bird, as he strikes 
the moist soil, tells that he has fallen; the long stream of 
feathers floating in the still air through yonder open glade, 
announces the fate of the second; and. before the butt of 
the gun, dropped to load, has touched the ground, without 
