The long mobile bill of the woodcock is a study in itself. The rapidity with which the bird uses it in following a worm in the ground is marvellous. It is extremely flexible--so much so as to be bent and twisted into every shape without suffering harm--and it is as sensitive as flexible. Every sportsman knows that woodcocks are here to-day, gone to-morrow. He often finds that where there were plenty yesterday not a single 'cock remains. Ireland, perhaps, affords the best shooting. It was here that the Earl of Clermont shot fifty brace in one day. This feat was the result of a wager; and the bag was made by two o'clock in the afternoon, with a single-barrelled flint-lock. The birds were shot in a moist wood; and it is in such spots on the mild west coast that the woodcock finds its favourite haunt. In England the birds affect coppice-woods, frequenting most those which are wet, and such as have rich deposits of dead and decaying leaves. Most of these copses are of oak and birch and hazel, and being only of a few years' growth are thick in the top. Killing 'cock, as they dash through the twigs of these and seldom rising above the bushes, is one great test of a shooter's skill. Then the birds have a habit of dropping down at a short distance, which almost invariably deludes the inexperienced gunner. When they are put up from their resting places during the day the flight is rapid; at evening it is slow. It is now that they are easiest to shoot; though in some parts of the country they are still taken in nets as they fly at dusk through the paths of the woods. Netting woodcocks was at one time the common way of taking them; for they have always been highly esteemed as food. Another method of capture was by "gins" and "springs;" and it would seem that in times past the "woodsnipe" was considered a stupid bird. None of the denizens of the woods conforms better or more closely to its environment. The browns and duns and yellows of its plumage all have their counterpart in the leaves among which it lies; and it has been pointed out that the one conspicuous ornament of the bird is covered by a special provision from the gaze of those for whose admiration it is not intended. This is the bright colouring of the tail feathers, which cannot be seen except at the will of the bird or in flight. Its protection lacks in one thing, however, and that is its large dark eye; this is full, bright, and (so to speak) obtrusive. It is not often that a special provision of this kind is injurious to its owner; but the lustre which beams from the woodcock's eye is apt to betray its presence, and even to negative the advantage of its protective colouring. This has long been known. Hudibras has it that: "Fools are known by looking wise, As men find woodcocks by their eyes."