COCK (or WOODCOCK) SHOOTING is of a different and most entertaining description, when and wherever a plenty for the sport can be found. The woodcock is a bird of passage, and found frequently in a greater or less degree about the second, third, or last week of October. Their annual arrival in this country is more or less protracted by the uncertainty of the _wind_ and _weather_ at that particular season; the east and north-east winds (with a foggy heavy atmosphere) bring them over in the greatest plenty. Upon their first arrival, they have the appearance of being nearly exhausted, and drop under the nearest offered protection to the sea-shore; high trees, hedge-rows, small copses, heath, tufts of bushes and brambles, are equally acceptable. After rest, and such refreshment as the situations where they fall afford, they separate, and almost singly explore their way into the country more in-land, and fall in such woods, coverts, copses, or shaws, as are most applicably attracting or convenient to the length of their flight; varying the situation in future according to the accommodation they find, or the country they are in. No one part of the coast is more remarkable for their arrival in immense flights than another; Wales, Sussex, Norfolk, and to the extreme points of the north of Scotland, are, at different periods, supplied with equal plenty: in all or either of which, eight or ten brace (immediately after a flight arrives) have been killed out of one covert in a morning by a single gun.
The dogs used for this sport are the small COCKING SPANIEL; though they are frequently found by pointers, who make their point upon winding the bird, but not quite so staunch as to the more confirmed species; of which game the cock in a certain degree seems to partake. The woodcock, when _flushed_, rises heavily from the ground; and in an open glade, is so easily brought down, that even a _moderate_ shot must be ashamed to _miss_; but when sprung in a lofty oaken or beechen wood, he is obliged to tower almost perpendicular above their tops, before he can attain sufficient height to take his flight in a horizontal direction; and this kind of vermicular flight he makes with such rapidity, (turning and twisting to avoid the trees,) that it is almost impossible to seize a moment for shooting with any tolerable prospect of success. As partridge shooting requires an almost systematic silence for the production of sport, so cock shooting admits of the reverse: for the greater the noise, the greater probability of success. Well-bred spaniels immediately _quest_ so soon as they come upon _haunt_, as well as the moment a cock unexpectedly springs; this is the distinguishing trait of their utility, as it gives timely notice to every one of the party, and each individual has sufficient opportunity to be upon the _watch_.
