214 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 8, 190S. 
THE TROJAN BRIDGE AT CINTA CASTELLANA. 
One of the famous places in Italy where woodcock are shot at night and morning. In this picture 
typical spalletta country is shown. 
cause they go over the ground carefully and 
quietly and because they can stand the cold, 
the water and the thorns, without suffering. 
The English pointer is noisy and wild, and will 
pass over birds sitting close, besides collapsing 
if the woods are very wet, and in any case hav¬ 
ing his thin skin scratched unmercifully; the 
setter cannot be controlled sufficiently and will 
flush the birds so far that one often puts up a 
number without getting a shot. People, will 
argue to the contrary, but pointers and setters 
have been tried extensively and discarded in 
favor of the other breeds. 
Shooting in the big woods—macchia piana, 
the natives call it—entails a trip to pretty un¬ 
civilized territory. The Maremma, the Pontines, 
Otranto and Calabria are the most likely- sec¬ 
tions. One goes to some primitive village and 
puts up at the so-called hotels that the places 
support, taking a car or carriage to the grounds 
the next morning, or one can go direct to the 
grounds and spend the night at a nearby farm¬ 
house or peasant’s hut. The latter is really the 
best plan; the good people are hospitable and 
painstaking, and you will fare better than at the 
hotels. You will also profit by not seeking a 
professional guide in the city. They are to be 
found, but they are not very satisfactory. A 
ciociaro picked up on the grounds will know 
far better where to take you and you will get 
more birds. 
In macchia piana three or four sportsmen 
generally hunt together and advance on a line. 
Whenever a dog finds, the owner gives a signal 
and then makes for the clearest spot in sight, 
while the others circle the bird and flush it to¬ 
ward this opening. One has plenty of time for 
this, as the birds generally lie very close, but 
one does not always get a shot. The woodcock 
likes woods wet underfoot, thick in trees, and 
tangled with briers, through which man is forced 
to crawl on hands and knees. In this wilder¬ 
ness it gets away unseen, though never un¬ 
heard, and one often fires blindly in the vain 
hope that a stray pellet may find its way through 
the dead branches and bring it down. 
One good thing about woodcock shooting is 
that, unless the bird is a cunning, old acclimated 
resident of die district, it will fly in a straight 
line for fifty or a hundred yards and then settle 
again. It is thus easy to note its direction and 
find it again. It will not tarry long in its new 
place, but will return to its early haunt as soon 
as it considers it safe. 
In the spalletta the work is harder than in 
the big woods, for one is obliged to go up and 
down hill constantly, and the vegetation is even 
more massed. But sportsmen always hunt them 
in pairs, and as only one enters the woods, the 
other skirting them from beneath, in the 
open, by alternating positions each can have a 
rest if he wants it. Curious to relate, though, 
one generally finds coupled a lazy man who 
stays outside altogether and a strenuous one 
who does all the work inside. The name of 
being a good spalletta hunter is considered 
worth getting at any cost, for it amounts to an 
honorary title in the world of sport. 
The average spalletta is from one to two 
hundred feet wide, except where deep gorges 
extend into the fields, and may follow a 
stream or valley for miles. As a rule both sides 
of the valley are wooded, but it is only the 
greenhorn who will enter the side having a 
southern or easterly exposure. Woodcock seek 
out northern and western exposures, and here 
you may find a big bag while a man across the 
valley will go the day without unloading his gun. 
Not a few hunters consider a spalletta im¬ 
penetrable to all but a dog or a wild boar, and 
they keep to the fields above and below, while 
the dogs break through inside; but others put 
on a leather coat and guardamacchia—goatskin 
leggings like our cowboys’ chaps—tie their hats 
under their chins and follow the dogs. To them 
goes the first shot. But one has to aim from 
all sorts of cramped and crazy positions in the 
spalletta, and it is a phenomenal gunner who 
kills more than he misses. 
An interesting feature of spalletta shooting 
■is the chance of enlarging the bag at the morn¬ 
ing and evening flights. Woodcock at nightfall 
leave the woods for the feeding grounds and re¬ 
turn at break of day. They always follow the 
strips of woods if they can, keepingonly a few feet 
above the trees and moving at a terrific rate of 
speed. Against the green background, in the 
darkness of twilight, it is impossible to see 
them, but where a road cuts the woods one may 
get the glimpse of a shadow as the bird flashes 
by, and as every bird in the neighborhood will 
probably pass him, he may get three or four 
shots both morning and evening. It is at best 
a chance shot, for one fires at the sound as 
much as at the shadow, but the delay is worth 
while. A bird added to the bag at the eleventh 
hour rounds off the day very nicely. 
And it is a beautiful bird. More than twice 
the size of our American woodcock (it weighs 
up to sixteen and eighteen ounces), and is more 
handsome. 1 he plumage, though somewhat 
similar, is darker and richer, the glossy shades 
of dark brown and black forming a higher 
mosaic-like design on its back, indeed a half 
dozen are enough to make glad the heart of any 
sportsman. But it is the general atmosphere 
that gives to shooting in Italy such fascination. 
The quaint customs of the peasant one is 
thrown in with, the way one is obliged to live, 
the odd little villages he finds, the unusual 
scenery he goes through and the delightful 
climate all combine to make the pleasure com¬ 
plete. 
Foreigners generally like the fall woodcock 
shooting, when the turning leaves give to the 
woods the warm tints of the bird itself, and a 
few only prefer the later days when the fields 
are white with the morning frost and the bare 
trees shine with the sparkle of a thousand dia¬ 
monds. But to the native nothing can compare 
with the dainty luxuriance of spring, and any 
one will understand it who has learned to read 
the Italian’s nature. Take from him the crude 
necessities of work and his existence will be 
one long song. Spring expresses the newness 
of life and the joys of living to him. and so he 
loves it. And who could resist the exultant feel- 
ing that fills the heart on entering the woods on 
a bright March day in Italy? The mingled 
scents of the violet and hawthorn assail the 
nostrils and rush to the brain with their in¬ 
toxicating fragrance while the dogs’ bells jingle 
merrily in the pure morning air. A thrush is 
singing softly in the laurel, a flock of chuckling 
blackbirds flits elusively from bush to bush— 
but a mighty flapping of wings suddenly dis¬ 
turbs the peaceful quiet—then the sharp crack 
of a gun, and in the silence that follows, the 
soft thud of a falling bird and the excited ring 
of the bell as the dog rushes to pick it up. 
