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.
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