194 
PRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
Somewhat, I must confess, to my surprise, I have observed 
within the last few weeks, a long and somewhat elaborate 
article, in the columns of that admirable journal, the New-York 
Spirit of the Times, the writer of which apparently quite uncon¬ 
scious of all that has been written on the subject, and seeming 
to believe that he has made a discovery, brings out anew the 
old corn-field story. The matter is really not worth talking 
about. Every school-boy knows that late in July and August 
a few birds occasionally resort to wet, woodside maize-fields, 
and every one who has shot fifty summer Cock in his life ought 
to know, that no number are ever to be found in them, and that 
he must have immense luck who bags a dozen Cock in all the 
maize-fields he can beat in a hard day’s walk. I would like 
nothing better than to bet season in and out, against one bird 
to the square acre—or square five acres, for that matter. 
I think the reader will admit that the two theories, alluded to 
above, are by these facts indisputably controverted. 
And now I must expect that it will be enquired of me, 
“ whither, then, do they go ] What does become of them V ’ 
To which sage questions it is, I grieve to say, my fate to be 
unable to make satisfactory reply. 
I was formerly inclined to believe, that when the moult is at 
hand, the Woodcock withdraws to the small upland runnels, 
and boggy streamlets, which are to be found everywhere among 
our highest hills or mountains. That the moulting season is the 
signal for dispersion, and the termination of all family ties 
between the young and old birds, is certain. From this time 
forth, until the next February brings round the pairing time, 
the Woodcock, whether found singly in a solitary place, or 
among scores of his kind, is still a lonely and ungregarious 
bird, coming and going at his own pleasure, without reference 
—undemocratic rascal—to the will of the majority. 
In corroboration of this view of the absence of our bird 
during the early autumn, I was once informed by a gentleman 
whose word I have no reason to disbelieve, that on ascending 
once to the summit of Bull Hill, one of the loftiest of the High- 
