When you are in a restaurant and contemplate a nicely presented piece of fish - say, a sole or plaice - do you think, "the poor creature, it might still be swimming around in its own element if it weren't for human greed"? Probably not, certainly not. But who could not have some slight mental reservation when he or she is presented with a small bird, roasted, on a similar plate: a snipe or a woodcock?
This is how Mrs Beeton would have you present the bird for roasting: "Woodcock should not be drawn, as the trails are, by epicures, considered a great delicacy. Pluck and wipe them well outside; truss them with the legs close to the body, and the feet pressing upon the thighs; skin the neck and head, and bring the beak round under the wing." It's that last bit that might give you qualms. The eyeless head complete with beak, accusing you of murder.
But away with all that; woodcock shooting is legal from November 1st to the end of January. Last Sunday, in Meath, several groups of men with guns were seen in the blinding rain. Not after woodcock, the expert says, for they are hardly known in the area, but after the cock pheasant - the first Sunday of the season.
The woodcock, according to shooting men, is of all game birds the most intriguing. In the first place, its colouring makes if difficult to see on the ground. It could be at your feet, the expert said, and you wouldn't notice it. When it does take off, it doesn't go skywards, where you could get a good view of it, but dodges among the trees and bushes where it usually lies. A French magazine recently gave two pages to photographs of the wings of young and mature birds, showing how to distinguish them in colouring and shape, and the colouring makes the point - you could find it hard to see the bird against a background of fallen leaves, bracken, brambles and grasses.
"It is doubtful if any game bird is held in greater esteem than the woodcock. In Ireland certainly, the `cock', to use the vernacular of sportsmen, are widely regarded as quarry without equal." So begins a most illuminating article on the bird by Dr Douglas Butler in a booklet, A Selection of Irish Game Birds, published by the National Association of Regional Councils in 1996. Average take of the bird in Ireland is estimated as 57,000. In France, a much bigger country of course, an estimated 1,321,000, and in Italy a million.