“We soon found many tracks of the woodcock on the black mud; and on one spot these, as well as the borings of his beak, were very numerous. Here my companion halted, and pulling out his knife, cut down a tall willow rod, which he stuck firmly into the ground in nearly an upright position, or perhaps rather inclining backwards.
“On the opposite side of the run he fixed a peg, so as to project only a few inches above the surface; to this he fastened a slight stick about a foot long, attached loosely with a tough string, much as the swingel of a flail is to its handstaff: another branch of a willow was bent into an arch, and both ends driven into the soft ground to a considerable depth on the opposite side of the track, and nearer to the tall upright wand. To the top of the latter a string was now fastened, the end of which was formed into a large running noose; while, about half way down, another piece of stick, about six inches long, was tied by its middle. The flexible wand was then bent forcibly downwards, one end of the little stick overhead was passed under the arch, while it was retained in this position, and at the same time the bow prevented from springing upwards, by the other extremity being placed against a notch at the end of the stick which had been fastened to the peg on the other side of the run, across which it now lay, two or three inches from the ground, and supported the noose. This, in fact, constituted the trigger, which was to be released when struck by the breast of the woodcock. The old man constructed his trap in much less time than I have taken to describe it. His last care was to weave the sedges on either side of the run into a kind of screen, so as to weir the woodcock into the snare, and this he accomplished with much skill and expedition.”
“We have caught the woodcock.”
All’s Well, Act iv. Sc. 1.
THE GIN.
Another method of taking this bird was with a steel trap called “a gin:”
“Now is the woodcock near the gin.”
Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 5.
This trap, being commonly used now-a-days for rats, is probably too well known to need a description here.
“So strives the woodcock with the gin.”
Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.