because they arc such delicious eating—to my mind the king
of all birds,—that every one shoots them on the first opportunity,
and gives no scope for the development of their amiable
qualities. But from what I have myself seen, I cannot
help thinking that with a little trouble it would not be
difficult to domesticate them. Their mode of feeding has been
already described above; and, though I have never seen them
at work, I have hundreds of times seen the little, rather funnelshaped
holes that they bore in the mud and turf alongside the
streams where they reside ; and, as you work up or down these
latter, these holes furnish certain indications as to whether there
are or are not Woodcock about, and where to look for them if
there are. If they have not been disturbed they will be found
squatting within a stone's throw of their feeding place.
I have found worms of all sizes and shapes, grubs, larvae,
fragments of black coleóptera, tiny scraps of grass, and a sticky
glutinous animal substance which I could not identify in those
I have examined. Besides which their gizzards always contain
a quantity of gravel.
When migrating they arc said to fly strongly and well, but
when flushed, the flight is at first slow, uncertain and Owl-like,
and ceases suddenly, the bird dropping instantaneously behind
some bush. I have never had any sport with Woodcock in
Northern India. I have often shot them, rarely more than three
in a day ; but they gave no sort of sport. They fluttered up
flushed by the dogs or some beater within twenty yards, and
were knocked over by a snap shot as they hung wavering on
first rising. One shot them because they were so good to eat; in
every other respect they were not worth shooting. They don't
seem to fly a bit as Woodcock do in covers at home, where even
a good shot is at times baulked ; but, like Snipe, and almost every
living thing domiciled in this "clime of the sun," they seem to
have become listless and sluggish. And certainly, though
markedly smaller and lighter birds, they are very much fatter—
balls of fat in many of them, which, unless special measures are
adopted, it is impossible to turn into good specimens.
Tickcll gives a very good description of Woodcock-shooting
in Nepal, which is somewhat different to what we in the North-
West are accustomed to. He says:—" Woodcock-shooting in
Nepal is laborious work from the steepness of the hills and the
spongy nature of the ground which the bird frequents. Wc
found them on light rich mould, thickly matted with grasses,
ferns, and other weeds, and everywhere furrowed by little rills
of water trickling through the tangle, or here and there stagnating
in little pools or ' bog-holes' concealed under a layer of
vegetation, which formed tolerable pitfalls to the unwary intruder,
receiving him sometimes up to the hip. The jungle on
these hills is pretty thick, but not lofty, consisting mostly of
briars and thicket; and it would have been impossible to get a
fair shot within it, were it not that some of the largest rills
(perhaps a yard broad) bordered with mossy turf, formed
narrow vistas through the tangle, up and down which the birds
when flushed would fly, giving some chance to a snap shot.
We had no dogs—a luxury known to very few Indian sportsmen,
but employed beaters to find the game. I had never
even seen cock-shooting in England, and my first day's experience
of it in Nepal surprised me not a little. I was a good
Snipe shot in those days, and, imagining from the general resemblance
of the two birds that a Woodcock must fly like a Snipe,
I was much taken aback, when hailed to ' look out/ at perceiving
what appeared like a large bat coming with a wavering,
flagging flight along the little lane-like opening in the wood
where I was posted ; but in an instant, ere I had made up my
mind to fire, the apparition made a dart to one side, topped
the bordering thicket, and seemed to fall like a stone into the
covert beyond. These sudden jerks and zigzags, in the midst
of its otherwise dilatory flight, are terribly puzzling to a novice.
The bird alights also in the same fashion, dropping at once
down as if it had flown against a wall. They were not
numerous in Nepal, and two couple bagged to one gun during
the afternoon was considered very fair sport. We found them
only on the low spurs bordering the open valley of Kathmandu,
on its northern side—on such slopes as were of the description
above given, looking more like the copses and hazel
•woods of England than the forests of India."
On the Nilgiris Woodcock do afford some sport ; there you
have nearly bare comparatively softly undulating hills, covered
with fine close turf ; their sides and flanks furrowed by narrow
ravines traversed by a streamlet, and filled with ilex and wild
cinnamon trees, at whose bases grows a dense undergrowth of
Strobilanthes, brambles, or a grass like bamboo, &c. These
narrow strips of jungle, locally termed sholas, arc on these
hills the favourite haunts (you will find them in many other
places) of the Woodcock. Broad sholas, over a hundred yards
in breadth, are rarely beaten for cock, as these only fly about
inside such and will not come out, and it is vile work struggling
through the interior of these jungle patches ; but into
those which are from twenty to one hundred yards in width, a
number of beaters and a pack of dogs, mostly nondescript curs,
arc turned at the top, and they are then beaten straight
down, a shooter walking on each side. Then the Woodcock
get well on the wing before you sec them, and dart out from
the trees flying pretty sharp, affording very pretty, if not difficult,
shots. Sometimes, if there is any other shola running down
not far from the one that is being beaten, they make straight
for that; more often they fly a short distance down the outside,
and again turn in suddenly. Sometimes, if much pressed,
they will work quite down to the far end before you sec them j