Morning journal and courier., 1881-08-03
Woodcock Shooting.

To Be Enjoyed in New York While IL IS
 Forbidden in New Jersey-The Birds
 Peculfa rities.
 From the New York Herald, August 2ndl The season in which under the law wood cock may be shot in New Jersey closed yes terday, and simultaneously the doors Of New York were thrown open to those enthusiastic sportsmen who brave the heat, and marshy quicksands in order to pop away at the tw1t- terinp long bills. It is no easy task nova days for even the veteran sportsman to select 8 place in which good shooting may pc as- sured. Where ten or fifteen years ago the birds were found in large numbers the wood cock has become 7-GY,a GUts. The woodman s axe has thinned out his haunts in the old covers. and the drain pipe has dried up the spring hillsides whereon he used to bob at ease and suck his julep. Still there are few
 matches of choice cover left where the ground has not soured and the feed IS yet abundant:
 But these swamps and swales are so well known that it is worth your life to take part in the fusilade that marks 'swoodcock day. within one hundred miles of the metropolis.
 Besides the birds are getting scarcer from other causes, one of which is that in their
 flight they have to run the gantlet of the mazs of telegraph wires,- and every season hun
 drsds of birds are picked up either dead or crippled, having flown agaanst the wlres ID the night.
 In this State the shooting was legally be- gun yesterday, except in Ducthess county,
 where it is prohibited during August. It IS said. however, that for weeks past in the counties bordering New Jersey and Pennsyl, yania the game laws have been dead letter, and the sudden disappearance of ''owls' from
 the bills of fare of the most noted city restau- rants gives slight color to the story.
 THE wooDoooK's HAUNrs.
 The woodcock during the first of the month are found in low, swampy ground, i'll spring swales or on the steps of mountains where brooks trickle down and here and there form marshy spots. The latter Is fa-
 vorite place for the old birds to nest and hatch out their broods, but as the season ad- yances and the heat dries out the streams they pitch into the boggy swamps that lie al the bases of the hills. Here they stop until they begin to moult, which they generally
 begin to do about the middle of the month, and then few birds can be found in the standing corn and along the onion patches on
 the bog meadows Orange county has al ways been favorite place, and along its
 drowned lands wsodcock once literally
 swarmed On Long Island birds are more ol less abundant according to the seasons, but it is in the great swampy district lying to the south of the great north woods that the best
 shooting is now to be found. AS wren will return to it's box every season, so will ths voodcock revisit his swamp; but the rapid determination of the bird in the southern States during the winter, and the ineessant shooting at it in the North during the sum mer, are making this king of all game birdi scareer every year.
 To make good bag of woodcock dog must be employed, and as the spaniel is a yet little known in this country, the birds arr killed over settlers and pointers. It takes crack shot to produce good days wopk. ant 1 he must be born shot and not made. Whel birds are strong and wild, the sportsman ha 1 to shoot with the eye of faith to kill, for af ter being flushed in the dense thickets tn. woodcock is the most artful dodger ]! in the world. Nor is it correct shooting alon'