ed, and then on--but this is not so! I know fifty
small spots like this, each a sure find in the summer for three or four
broods, say from eight to twelve birds. During the summer, when you have
killed the first lot, no more return--but the moment the frost begins,
there you will find them--never exceeding the original eight or ten in
number, but keeping up continually to that mark--and whether you kill
none at all, or thirty birds a week, there you will always find about
that number, and in no case any more. Those that are killed off are
supplied, within two days at farthest, by new comers; yet, so far as I
can judge, the original birds, if not killed, hold their own, unmolested
by intruders. Whence the supplies come in--for they must be near
neighbors by the rapidity of their succession--and why they abstain from
their favorite grounds in worse locations, remains, and I fear we must
remain, in the dark. All the habits of the woodcock are, indeed, very
partially and slightly understood. They arrive here, and breed early in
the spring--sometimes, indeed, before the snow is off the hills--get
their young off in June, and with their young are most unmercifully,
most unsportsmanly, thinned off, when they can hardly fly--such is the
error, as I think it, of the law--but I could not convince my stanch
friends, Philo, and J. Cypress, Jr., of the fact, when they bestirred
themselves in favor of the progeny of their especial favorites, perdix
virginiana and tetrao umbellus, and did defer the times for slaying them
legitimately to such a period, that it is in fact next to impossible to
kill the latter bird at all. But vainly did I plead, and a false
advocate was Cypress after all, despite his nominal friendship, for that
unhappy Scolopax, who in July at least deserves his nickname minor, or
the infant. For, setting joke apart, what a burning shame it is to
murder the poor little half-fledged younglings in July, when they will
scarcely weigh six ounces; when they will drop again within ten paces of
the dog that flushes, or the gun that misses them; and when the heat
will not allow you even to enjoy the consummation of their slaughter.
Look at these fellows now, with their gray foreheads, their plump ruddy
breasts, their strong, well-feathered pinions, each one ten ounces at
the least. Think how these jolly old cocks tower away, with their shrill
whistle, through the tree-tops, and twist and dodge with an agility of
wing and thought