Ai-kh. 4, igoS.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
533 
Distribution of the Woodcock. 
This week we print another map, showing as 
raphically as did the one last week, the dangers 
hich threaten the woodcock. This map also we 
we to the kindness of Dr. A. K. Fisher, whose 
scellent paper on “Two Vanishing Game Birds" 
as referred to last week, and is recalled by all 
jortsmen. 
The woodcock is still more or less wavering 
1 the balance. Last season's reports were that 
ie birds were unusually abundant, yet a study 
if the map shows that the woodcock is still in 
anger. The shaded area represents the bird’s 
istribution in the United States, though many 
New Jersey would put an end to summer shoot¬ 
ing. Each year in these centers of abundance 
there is the possibility of great destruction of 
woodcock, and such destruction ought not to 
take place. 
The contribution of our correspondent who 
refers to the early woodcock found a week or 
two ago in Connecticut covers lends to this map 
an especial interest. Flowever carefully North¬ 
ern sportsmen may. strive to protect the wood¬ 
cock—and it must be remembered that some of 
them do not strive to do so at all—all their ef¬ 
forts may be rendered unavailing unless the 
Southern States generally, and above all those 
States in which the winter woodcock have their 
the ground soft and unfrozen, while good cover 
was furnished by a dense thicket of alders. 
Here the setter made game, and soon was on a 
point. Expecting to see a snipe, I walked up to 
him, when up bounced a big woodcock, with a 
fine strong whistle, seemingly as fat and vigor¬ 
ous as our last birds were in November. 
Not wishing to harass him I did not follow 
him up, but went $n to a little valley between 
two hills, where I hoped to see a grouse or two 
if any were left. Instead of grouse, two more 
woodcock were pointed and flushed, in both 
cases pitching down again nearby, and then walk¬ 
ing about in plain sight of me. 
Leaving the valley, I went back by a route 
DISTRIBUTION OF WOODCOCK IN THE UNITED STATES. 
’of them pass northward into British America to 
rear their young, but in winter practically all 
withdraw to the south of the black line on the 
map which passes through North and South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkan¬ 
sas and Louisiana. Within this Southern winter 
range, the double crossed areas on the Atlantic 
coast and on the gulf coast show the territory 
where the woodcock concentrate in winter, and 
where they ought especially to he protected, yet 
where they receive little or no protection. It is 
not intended to say that every woodcock in the 
country in winter gets down to the crossed line 
area, but these are their centers of abundance. 
It were greatly to be desired that the Southern 
States generally would protect the woodcock in 
winter, just as it is greatly to be desired that 
greatest abundance, shall give this beautiful, and 
unfortunately now scarce, bird adequate protec¬ 
tion during their sojourn in the South. 
The Returning Woodcock. 
New York, March 2t. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: On the morning of March 17 last I was 
at our old farm in central Connecticut, and as 
the day was too raw for riding, I decided in 
favor of a good long walk with the dogs, to see 
what game was left in our vanishing covers. For 
two miles I tramped over frozen pasture land 
before reaching any place which birds would re¬ 
sort to in such weather. 
At length I came to the headwaters of a small 
stream, where a number of large springs kept 
which took me along the course of a good-sized 
trout brook whose banks were clothed with al¬ 
ders and white birches with a few hemlocks and 
cedars. Years ago it was nothing unusual to 
start a dozen grouse in a mile walk along this 
brook, but with the exception of one old bird 
that jumped up not six feet from me, after al¬ 
most letting me step upon him. not one grouse 
did I see. 
Six more woodcock were pointed by the setter 
and one more was flushed by the collie, making 
ten in all for the morning, which is a larger 
number than I have ever seen in one morning in 
the same covers. 
Early in the present month I enjoyed a week 
of excellent quail shooting in South Carolina, 
and while there saw a few woodcock, although 
