Killing in February The close season is generally supposed to
begin with February. It does not. You are allowed to go on shooting snipe and woodcock till the beginning of March in some counties, till St. Valentine's Day in others. Now one of the hopes of most naturalists is that the woodcock should nest more freely in England. Signs there are in plenty, indeed they amount to proof that the birds would nest in a great many counties if they were not mercilessly harried. An old chronicler (or Crowland Abbey) calls the snipe eccentric. The woodcock is perhaps more eccentric ; but so far as there is a rule in its movements, it voyages west after breeding, and presently returns to the neighbourhood Of the old home. Shooting in February throws this habit out of gear. Many birds have then paired and are easy to kill. Poor woodcock I Men shoot at them at any distance, and at any date from August 1st to March 1st, seven complete months. That most humane of sporting papers, The Field, has a plea in their favour ; and it speaks for sportsmen first and naturalists second. I would beg county councils, who have the matter in their control, to apply to woodcock and indeed to snipe, the same close season that is accorded to the partridge. Why not ?
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