Sham Woodcock
Perhaps the waders also are particularly numerous. The suggestion is an inference from a particular example. The other day in a little township passers-by were invited to buy snipe and woodcock, whose dead bodies were hung up on the wall of a house. One purchaser complained that he could not eat the bird he had bought ; it was too fishy. Most of the birds were neither snipe nor woodcock. They were waders of various sorts, including redshanks. Some years ago in the same neighbourhood I was offered woodcock at a cheap rate, and the seller pulled out from his sack a quite unmistakable curlew. How far the curlew is edible is a subject of dispute among the gourmets. The more expert -(who include that admirable naturalist, " Fishhawk ") say that it is very good to eat in autumn and not very good in winter. This same natural- ist sportsman alleges the excellence as table birds of both rel- shank and dunlin. The last is, I suppose, by fai the most common of all the waders though inland observers are scarcely aware of its existence ; and its body might be sold in a thousand shops without a single purchaser recognising its identity.
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