At a Boxing Day shooting-lunch the talk among the guns was upon the
ways and wiles of woodcock. One spoke of his long bill, with its
sensitive nerves, which tell the bird what he has found when the
bill forages among the dead leaves; speculating as to whether he
lived by his powers of suction only. Another wondered if the eating
qualities of woodcock legs were really improved by pulling out the
sinews. The question arose: Is the man who shoots a woodcock entitled
to its pen-feathers, or is the man who first finds and secures those
delicate trophies best entitled to stick them in the band of his hat?
Woodcock provoked many controversies. Is there any secret in the proper
roasting of them? Would the law absolve a man who shot his fellow when
shooting 'cock?--and would the fact that he shot his bird as well
as his man make any difference? How many people could swear to have
seen the mother woodcock carrying her young; and exactly how does
she carry them? How many of the home-bred birds leave us in autumn?
What proportion of woodcock comes in from abroad, and what is the
difference between the foreigners and the genuine Britishers? In answer
to the last question, a suggestion was made that the foreign birds
were large and light in colour, but the British birds small and dark.
Around this point arose a discussion, and the keeper was called in to
give his opinion. "It ain't nothin' at all to do with Englishmen and
foreigners," he said. "It be whether they be cocks or hens, and 'tis
the large light uns that be the hens."
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