On come the long-bills, looking right and left, pecking the ground, peering at the moon and the stars, and eating all they can find in their way. They now approach the dangerous defile, and some of the younger ones fly over the traps; others, more prudent, turn back; but the main body hold a council of war, when the staff officers having decided that these Thermopylæ must be passed, first one woodcock and then another taking heart proceeds, and the sportsman hugs himself in his success on perceiving the whole troop making towards the baits he has spread for them. Before long one of the birds gets its leg entangled, totters, falls, rises again, but in doing so is made fast by the noose, and in spite of its efforts is unable to advance a step further. Another, hearing the sound of a worm struggling at the bottom of a hole, darts in its beak, with the charitable intention of ending the prisoner's sufferings, and on raising its head is suddenly seized by the neck. The sportsman now steals softly from his hiding-place, and, stooping down, smashes the woodcock's brain with his thumb nail, and so on with the next, after which he retreats to his post, and keeps up the game till dawn. Some persons will in this manner catch from twenty to thirty woodcocks in a single night; but they must be favourably placed, have a great number of snares, and, moreover, possess a considerable degree of skill, and tread lightly, (for the most important point, in this sport, is to make as little noise as possible,) and be very quick at putting the snares in order the moment they have been used--no easy work, in good sooth, seeing that it must be performed by an occasional ray of moonlight. If late on the ground, and you have not sufficient time to obstruct and barricade the road as directed above, the earth may be turned up in the middle of the path and the snares placed across it; the woodcocks, in the hope of finding something to eat, will immediately walk on to it--but although this method occasionally succeeds it is far from being as good as the first, for the soil does not offer the same resistance as the turf, the holes get filled up, and the birds escape more easily. The sportsman should mind and bag his game as fast as it is snared, or master Reynard, who has been watching the whole affair, will pounce upon his birds and carry them off, with a dozen nooses into the bargain. Poachers reap an ample harvest of cash by this mode of taking woodcocks, while other sportsmen generally reap the rheumatism; and, truth to say, the silence and immobility that must be observed all night long, the intense cold, and the damp fogs which cover the forest in the early morning, are not very agreeable, and most gentlemen prefer staying at home, enjoying the innocent diversion of playing the flute, quarrelling with their wives, or emptying the bottle.