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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
OF >s K P i K M B h 
 
I r ta.-tc-n, To h-* v\ J ft > 
 
 RECREATIONS IN SHOOTING 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 THE GAME OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 
 
 BY CRAVEN. 
 
 NEW EDITION, 
 
 With Sixty- two Embellishments, Engraved on Wood by F. W. BRANSTON, 
 
 From Original Drawings by WILLIAM HARVEY. 
 And Nine Engravings on Steel, chiefly after A. COOPER, R.A. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 1859. 
 
ADVEETISEMENT. 
 
 THE following pages are meant literally "to teach the young 
 idea how to shoot," and to set forth a popular sport in the 
 character of a rational rural recreation. No such work had yet 
 been written. Colonel Hawker, indeed, calls his amusing and 
 thoroughly practical volume, " Instructions to Young Sports- 
 men;" hut as a class book, it is only suited to a school for 
 grown children. A youth ambitious of the Scottish moors, or 
 to essay his devoir among the pheasants and partridges, cares 
 as little about "a self-acting machine for turning the insides 
 of gun-barrels," as for the internal economy of a self-acting 
 piano, or a barrel-organ. We have, therefore, in this our 
 Manual for the young shooter, eschewed all allusion to the 
 haberdashery of his pastime ; and, supposing him equipped as 
 befits his purpose, have taken him abroad to " flood and field," 
 introduced him to their boon populace, and bade him good 
 speed ! 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CnAPTER.-Sporting instinct-Early yearning of the 
 < young idea" after the lore which teaches "how to shoot "-Improved 
 character of the pursuit of Field Sports-The general design of 
 this work Brief notices of the materials used in Shooting Gun- 
 makers-Purveyors of gunpowder-Charges of powder and shot- 
 Shot-Wadding-Percussion caps-Directions for the management 
 
 from nage v to xx 
 of detonating guns 
 
 CHAPTER I. Deer Stalking Highland districts celebrated for this 
 sport Weather suited to it How best to stalk herds and single 
 Deer-Deer driving-The Deer rifle-Telescope-Hounds-Natu- 
 ral History of the Red Deer-A word about Stag Hunting-The 
 Fallow Deer-The family of Deer in Ireland-Earl of Marr's 
 Deer Hunt from page 1 to 20 
 
 CHAPTER II. Grouse Shooting Its characteristics Scotland the 
 chief district for this sport-Its system of shooting "quarters" 
 craves wary tenants Period of commencement How and when 
 to b egin-How to carry on the war-Scene of operation-Neces- 
 sity for earnest exertion-Dogs for the Moors-Their general 
 management Natural History of the Red Grouse 
 
 from page 21 to 35 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. Capercalzie Shooting An Imperial Sport Intro- 
 duction (of late years) of the Capercalzie into this country Slaying 
 the Capercalzie in Sweden Mr. Brehm's plan Natural History 
 of the Wood Grouse, or Capercalzie .... from page 36 to 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Black Cock Shooting The Black Grouse, a bird easy 
 of approach at one season of the year, and equally difficult at 
 another Its pugnacious propensities Hints for young hands to 
 become handy at this sport How old hands, poachers, treat it as 
 a business Natural History of the Black Grouse from page 46 to 57 
 
 Setters. The principal family of Dogs used for the purposes of 
 Shooting Their peculiarities Mr. Lang, the gunmaker's, theory 
 and practice of Setting Dogs His Russian breed The management 
 of Shooting Dogs in kennel from page 57 to 66 
 
 CHAPTER V. Partridge Shooting Period of commencement How 
 to set about this pastime General rules for its pursuit Colonel 
 Hawker anent the same Natural History of the British and Red- 
 legged, or French, Partridge from page 67 to 80 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Pheasant Shooting When to begin and how to con- 
 tinue it Ancient fashion and modern style of chasing this most 
 splendid of game birds Natural History of the Common Pheasant 
 and its varieties . from page 81 to 90 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Ptarmigan Shooting An introductory notice of that 
 remote residenced member of the Grouse family, the Ptarmigan 
 How to sport for it according to the receipt of Mr. Colqnhoun, of 
 Luss How le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle Natural History of 
 the White Ptarmigan, or White Grouse; and several other varieties 
 of the species from page 91 to 101 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 The Retriever. Notice of this field servant-of-all-work \ slight 
 biography of Venom, the property of the Author, one of the worthies 
 of this cosmopolite family from page 102 to 105 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Quail Shooting The Quail a bird of passage 
 Partial to Ireland Once common to our cockney Isle of Thanet 
 Growing more scarce every year Daniel's social sketch of this 
 migrate not much to its credit Natural History of the Common 
 Quail from page 106 to 112 
 
 CHAPTER IX. Bustard Shooting A reminiscence of the amusement 
 No more leviathan gunnery of that sort to be had Former 
 fashion of its economy A rich episode touching the circumvention, 
 of a Bustard Natural History of the Great and Little Bustard 
 
 from page 113 to 117 
 
 CHAPTER X. Hare Shooting Vast quantities of Hares found in 
 closely preserved districts Their favourite resorts How best to 
 shoot them A touch of the philosophical Property of speed in 
 the Hare Natural History of the Hare ; its Domestic History 
 also from page 118 to 127 
 
 CHAPTER XI. Rabbit Shooting Various ways of enjoying this pas- 
 time Some account of the best Time best adapted for approach- 
 ing the Rabbit Ditto, Place Most suitable methods for shooting 
 him These are many, and therefore every one may please his fancy 
 and his taste, with luck and onion sauce . . from page 128 to 131 
 
 The Ferret. Ferreting How the animal and the amusement were 
 wont to be used, and abused, in former days Season for Ferreting, 
 and improved mode of treating the Ferret Management of Ferrets 
 General remarks upon them, in reference to our Recreations 
 particularly from page 132 to 135 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 The Rabbit. The olden British Rabbit of English Authors Its 
 Natural History and peculiarities . . . from page 136 to 138 
 
 The Pointer. The Natural History of this species of Shooting Dog- 
 How to select the best specimens How to test their quality How 
 to treat them when you have got them . . . from page 139 to 143 
 
 CHAPTER XII. Pigeon Shooting The Author's apology for its intro. 
 duction to the Reader Where to go about it, and how, if he will 
 This, of course, relates to Dove practice for wagers, or fun ; if fun, 
 such may be Wild or Woodpigeon Shooting Its season arid 
 fashion of achievement Natural History of the Woodpigeon, or 
 Ringdove of British Authors, and different varieties of the family 
 
 from page 144 to 155 
 
 Terriers. General remarks upon these familiar four-footed friends A 
 spice of their peculiarities Instinct and the like 
 
 from page 155 to 159 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. Woodcock Shooting "the fox-hunting of the trig- 
 ger " Where to find, or, at all events, where to look for the " Cock " 
 How to compass him when discovered Colonel Hawker on 
 these matters Capital Cocking in Ireland Natural History of 
 the Woodcock, with a word about some of its varieties, and other 
 matters from page 160 to 172 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. Snipe Shooting Your Snipe, like your Cock, is a 
 bird of passage The sport of slaying him not common on a satis- 
 factory scale in many counties of England How to set about it 
 With what dogs, and other devices Nice field practice for young 
 gunners Natural History of the Common Snipe, Great Solitary 
 ditto and a Variety from page 173 to 182 
 
 Shooting the Jack Snipe. A few hints on this subject, with a brief 
 Natural History of this queer sample of Sporting Ornithology 
 
 from page 183 to 186 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 The Newfoundland Dog. A succinct biography of this species, with 
 notices of its philanthropy, compiled from remote and modern 
 instances How useful to the Sportsman Wherefore an object of 
 interest to man, whatever his calling or pursuit Also a word about 
 the Pheasant Spaniel, or Springer from page 186 to 196 
 
 CHAPTER XV. Birds which are not "Game" The list commences 
 with the Bittern, and thence proceeds to 
 
 Shooting the Heron Reasons and directions for so doing To which 
 are added the Natural Histories of Bitterns and Herons 
 
 from page 197 to 208 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. Shooting the Knot the Land and Water Rails 
 the Godwit the Golden Plover the Grey Plover the Lapwing 
 and the Long-legged Plover together with the Natural History 
 of each from page 209 to 235 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. Shooting the Dotterel the Ruff and Reeve the 
 Grebe the Curlew the Coot the Oxbird the Redwing 
 the Fieldfare and the Lark With items of the Natural History 
 of each, and a few words about Waterhens. This and preceding 
 chapter relate to little more than the matter in their respective 
 catalogue ; the act of sporting such " small deer " being no matter 
 of science, and scarce an affair of skill . . . from page 236 to 269 
 
 The Water Spaniel And his Natural History . from page 270 to 275 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. Wild Fowl Shooting Why this may be called 
 the "poetry of sport" Directions for slaying the "Songster of the 
 Waters" Colonel Hawker circumventing the " Syrens of Shooting" 
 Mr. Colojihoun ditto Natural History of the Wild Swan 
 
 from page 276 to 284 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 Wild Goose Shooting How followed on the Hampshire coast Canoe 
 cannonading Inland "Gooseing" in England and Scotland 
 Natural History of the Wild Goose, and its varieties 
 
 from page 284 to 287 
 
 Wild Duck, Widgeon, and Teal Shooting Directions for these Sports 
 generally, especially in running waters Battue Shooting afloat 
 Natural Histories of the species, and their varieties Our farewell 
 gun from page 287 to 307 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY WILLIAM HARVEY; ENGRAVED ON 
 WOOD BY FREDERICK BRANSTON. 
 
 SPORTSMEN RE FEE. SUING Frontispiece. 
 
 Page 
 
 DEER STALKING 1 
 
 DEER HOUNDS 1 
 
 THE RED DEER ........ 8 
 
 THE FALLOW DEER 15 
 
 GROUSE SHOOTING 21 
 
 RED GROUSE ........ 31 
 
 THE CAPERCALZIE 40 
 
 THE BLACK GROUSE ........ 50 
 
 THE GREY HEN ........ oi 
 
 THE SETTERS ......... 61 
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING ....... 67 
 
 THE PARTRIDGE 73 
 
 THE RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE . . . . . 78 
 
 PHEASANT SHOOTING 80 
 
 THE PHEASANT . . . . . . . 85 
 
 WHITE GROUSE, OR PTARMIGAN ..... 9t) 
 
 A RETRIEVER . . 10 i 
 
 THE QUAIL 110 
 
 THE BUSTARD 114 
 
 THE LITTLE BUSTARD 117 
 
 THE HARE . ....... 118 
 
 RABBIT SHOOTING 128 
 
 THE FERRET 132 
 
XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Paee 
 
 THE RABBIT ... .... 186 
 
 THE POINTER 140 
 
 THE WOODPIGEON ........ 148 
 
 THE BLUE-ROCK 151 
 
 THE STOCKDOVE 153 
 
 THE TERRIER 156 
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING 160 
 
 THE WOODCOCK ........ 164 
 
 THE SNIPE 177 
 
 THE JACK SNIPE 183 
 
 SPANIEL AND NEWFOUNDLAND DOGS .... 188 
 
 THE BITTERN 200 
 
 THE HERON .... .... 203 
 
 THE KNOT 213 
 
 THE LAND RAIL 217 
 
 THE WATER RAIL 220 
 
 THE GODWIT 225 
 
 THE GREEN PLOVER 227 
 
 THE GOLDEN PLOVER 229 
 
 THE LONG-LEGGED PLOVER 234 
 
 THE DOTTEREL ........ 240 
 
 THE RINGED DOTTEREL ....... 243 
 
 THE RUFF 246 
 
 THE REEVE .247 
 
 THE GREBE ......... 250 
 
 THE COMMON CURLEW 253 
 
 THE BALD COOT 257 
 
 THE FIELDFARE 262 
 
 THE WATER-HEN 267 
 
 THE WILD SWAN 280 
 
 WILD DUCK SHOOTING ....... 287 
 
 THE GREY LAG GOOSE 290 
 
 THE CANADIAN GOOSE 291 
 
 THE WILD DUCK 295 
 
 THE WIDGEON 296 
 
 THE SHELDRAKE, OR BURROUGH DUCK .... 297 
 
 THE TEAL 305 
 
 TAIL-PIECE 307 
 
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ENGRAVED ON STEEL. 
 
 Name. Painter. Engraver. 
 
 FIRST OF SEPTEMBER . A. Cooper, R.A. J. W. Archer Frontispiece. 
 
 ROE DEER . . .A. Cooper, R.A. E. Hacker . page 12 
 
 BLACK COCK SHOOTERS A. Cooper, R.A. J. W. Archer . ,,46 
 
 PARTRIDGES . . .A. Cooper, R.A. J. Outrim . . ,,76 
 
 HARD PRESSED . . J. W. Snow . . T. E. Nicholson 122 
 
 POINTERS . . . C. Hamilton . T. E. Nicholson 139 
 
 THE WOUNDED SNIPE . A. Cooper, R.A, R. Golding . 173 
 
 THE HERON. . . G. Lance, R.A. J. W. Archer . ,, 198 
 
 SEA FOWL SHOOTING . C. Bentley . . E. Radclyffe . 276 
 

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 " Thus much may serve by way of proem." SWIFT. 
 
 FROM what source springs that human instinct 
 which, for the want of a better term, we call a 
 taste for Sporting ? Is it because while life is 
 epicene vibrating between petticoats and trow- 
 sers the child is delivered over to Nature, that 
 we find the boy ever contriving means for the 
 circumvention of the denizens of "flood and field?" 
 Seek him even in innermost Cockaigne, where, 
 in strange apparel, under the denomination of a 
 Blue- coat scholar, his piscatory experience has 
 been haply confined to Burgess's essence of 
 anchovies, his practical ornithology to the study 
 of the sparrow on the house-top mark the youth, 
 we say, in circumstances which shall have limited 
 his familiarity with the creatures of the waters to 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 pickled salmon and Yarmouth bloaters his in- 
 tercourse with game, to an autumnal brace of 
 birds and bread sauce, and you discover him 
 shaping a pin into the "weak invention ' of a hook, 
 or, armed with a pop-gun, giving token of the 
 spirit which presently shall move him up to the 
 blue Highlands and the purple Moors, 
 
 Where the hunter of deer, and the warrior, trode 
 To his hills, that encircle the sea." 
 
 The pastimes of stream and woodland, cham- 
 pain and valley, are the characteristic exercises 
 of many of the noblest properties of man's nature. 
 They call into exertion courage, perseverance, 
 sagacity, strength, activity, caution : they are the 
 wholesome machinery of excitement : of hope 
 and fear, joy and sorrow, regret and rejoicing: 
 they are at once the appetite and the food of 
 manhood. The progress of science and civiliza- 
 tion has taken from the pursuit of field sports 
 many of the natural and moral ills to which they 
 were once exposed. Instead of being antagonist 
 meanings, the sportsman and the gentleman are 
 become synonymous terms. It is an excellent 
 thing that the youth of England may now adopt 
 the hale bold pastimes, which have ever been 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XVU 
 
 peculiar to their country, without prejudice to 
 their manners or morals : it is pleasant that they 
 can do so, " with all appliances and means to 
 boot/' which their requirements or convenience 
 can stand in need of. The following pages, ad- 
 dressed particularly to this class, are designed, with 
 the view to advance still further the social and 
 liberal character of rural sports. Not only do they 
 aspire " to teach the young idea how to shoot ;" 
 but to afford it familar introduction to the his- 
 tory, genealogy, and idiosyncrasy of the tribes 
 with which it may come in contact. Humble as 
 the claims of their author upon the reader may 
 be, they will escape utter repudiation, for sake of 
 the spirit in which they were written : small as 
 his hopes are of reaching the point of his 
 ambition, the manner of his work essays to 
 realise the principle, which he has made his 
 maxim in its construction, 
 
 " Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci." 
 
 The natural history of the game of the British 
 Islands in an illustrated form is an under- 
 taking in keeping with the spirit of the day. It 
 provides for the prevailing taste for embellished 
 works in an especial degree, because the feeblest 
 b 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 efforts of description are those which attempt to 
 convey correct ideas of persons or things. We 
 are not, indeed, without books, which help us to 
 portraits, as well as the natural history of our 
 social ferae so to call modern game; but there 
 does not exist a volume confined to the subject, 
 or which professes to deal with it alone and com- 
 pletely. We cannot complain of any scarcity of 
 sporting literature ; but the young disciple of the 
 trigger, the youth who would know how to comport 
 and enjoy himself on moor or stubble, in cover or 
 canoe, is unprovided with a Hand-book. Colonel 
 Hawker has certainly written eight editions of "In 
 structions for Young Sportsmen ;" but, like other 
 devices of instruction, they seem more fitted for a 
 task than a recreation. His amusement of wild 
 fowl shooting, superficially appears as little like 
 fun as anything that can be imagined. According 
 to the gallant Colonel's account, it is necessary 
 for the performer to wrap himself up in a cere- 
 cloth, like an Egyptian mummy, to avoid being 
 'ruined with the frequent mixture of salt water, 
 blood, mud, and gunpowder!" The young 
 sportsman is thus advertised as to the preparation 
 of his holyday suit : " Make with Eussia-duck, 
 a loose, over-all frock-coat, and a hood, or a cap 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 with a flap behind, similar to a coal-heaver's hat, 
 and dress them as follows : Take three quarts 
 of linseed oil, and boil them till reduced to two 
 quarts and a half, the doing which will require 
 about three hours, and when the oil is sufficiently 
 boiled, it will burn a feather. The addition of 
 some Indian rubber was suggested to me, but of 
 this I did not make a trial, because the dressing 
 answered so well without it. When the oil is 
 quite cold, take a clean paint brush, and well 
 work it into the outside of the whole apparel, and 
 it will soon find its way to the inside. Let the 
 apparel then be put out in the air every dry day 
 for a fortnight or three weeks ; and, at the expi- 
 ration of that time, provided the oil on it be 
 thoroughly dry, take the remainder of your pre- 
 pared oil, and give it the second coat. N.B. Let 
 the person who boils the oil, &c., beware of getting 
 burnt, and let him do it out of doors, or lie might 
 run a risk of setting your house on fire ; add to 
 this, the smell of it, when boiling, is a great 
 nuisance." O ! ingenuous youth ! what think ye 
 of dressing thus for a pleasure party ? 
 
 Before our neophyte enters on his pleasant 
 craft, it will be convenient to furnish him with 
 fitting materials. Chiefest of these, are his dog 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 and his gun. Elsewhere he will find hints how 
 best to supply himself with the former : we will 
 here address ourself to counsel him touching the 
 latter, and its necessary appurtenances. For your 
 gun of course a double-barrel percussion go to 
 the best artist in such articles within compass of 
 your pocket. Leave to him all matters of finish 
 all quality of the instrument and, as regards 
 choice, adopt to the letter the advice of Horace 
 to the youth about to rush into verse : 
 
 "Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, equam 
 Viribus : et versate din, quid ferre recusent, 
 Quid valeant humeri." 
 
 The great names in the Metropolitan gun trade 
 are those of Manton, Egg, Moore, Nock, Smith, 
 Purdey, Westley Richards represented by his 
 agent, Bishop, of Bond Street, and last, but 
 certainly not least, in our good opinion, Joseph 
 Lang, of the Haymarket : 
 
 " Cum multis aliis quos nunc," &c. 
 
 Comparisons are proverbially odious, and we 
 therefore eschew them, merely remarking, that 
 not being hard to please, we should be content 
 to have our wicked will in the preserves of 
 Holkham or Henham, with the best double de- 
 tonator any one of these might turn out. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Being supplied with a gun, we next come to 
 advise our young sportsman upon his supply of 
 powder : the vital principle of shooting. If ori- 
 ginally of a good quality, this agent will last 
 unimpaired for a very great length of time always 
 premising that its being kept perfectly dry is a 
 sine qua non. If once allowed to become damp, 
 your powder can never be restored to its first 
 excellence ; as moisture dissolves, more or less, 
 the materials which give it strength. Even the 
 air has a tendency to produce, or, at all events, 
 quickly to instil, damp into saltpetre ; therefore, 
 to preserve your powder, in all its original proper- 
 ties, keep it hermetically sealed in tin cases, 
 which are infinitely the best. A great deal has 
 lately been written upon the granulation of gun- 
 powder, and other subtilties of this composition ; 
 but, for all ordinary sporting purposes, get the 
 best quality of any recognised manufacturer, and 
 you may be sure of an article suitable to all your 
 wants : Curtis and Harvey ; Pigou and Co. Try 
 their wares, and if your piece do n't carry straight, 
 be sure the fault is not in the propelling principle. 
 
 Much diversity of opinion prevails as to the 
 best general charge for a gun to our thinking, 
 there can be no rule for any such thing. First 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 subject it to a patient series of trials at a target; 
 and, having accurately proved the heaviest charge 
 it will carry, with the best effect shooting close 
 and true adopt that as your loading. Some 
 years ago the correct proportions were declared 
 to be, an equal measure of powder and shot; 
 while some of the great professors, in their pigeon 
 matches, used only four drams of powder to two 
 ounces of shot No. 4. Where game does 
 not abound, we would recommend the use of 
 heavy charges; because when a bird is hit, it is 
 hit hard : in preserves, less ammunition will do. 
 It must always be borne in mind, that the heavier 
 the charge, the more quickly a barrel becomes foul, 
 As a principle, let the substance of the wad- 
 ding be regulated by the bore of the gun. Let 
 it also be elastic, and of a texture sufficiently 
 solid to resist the blast of the powder. The 
 article of wadding is sold everywhere that powder 
 and shot are to be had; and the great gun manu- 
 facturers have fitting contrivances of the sort, in 
 vast varieties. But there is not one of them 
 better than felt for large, and strong pasteboard 
 for small, bores. Keep these as dry as your 
 powder ; and ram your wadding, whatever it may 
 be made of, well down upon both your powder and 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 your shot. Before ramming it home over the 
 latter, give your gun a gentle blow upon the 
 ground, to make the shot lie even. The sooner 
 you re- load after firing the better: do it always 
 while the barrel is still warm. Of course, the last 
 thing you will do in loading is, to put on the caps. 
 
 It will not be enough that the charger of 
 your powder-flask has been accurately adjusted 
 to the measure of your charge, for you must take 
 care it is also fairly filled. To do this, place 
 your finger upon the top of it sufficiently firm to 
 prevent the powder from spilling, but not so as 
 to force it into the charger ; then turn your flask 
 upside down, give it a shake, and you will have 
 your just complement. 
 
 The size of shot is another fertile subject of 
 discussion among sportsmen. Some have gone 
 so far, in their desire to settle the question, as to 
 have pigeons plucked for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining to what extent feathers affect the pene- 
 tration of shot. Without leading our student 
 into refinements of theory as abstruse as this 
 unpleasant process of plucking word untuneful 
 to a student's ear we venture to propound, for 
 his acceptance, the fruit of our personal expe- 
 rience. In countries where game may be ap- 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 preached within reasonable distance, let him load 
 the right barrel with No. 6, and the left with 
 No. 4 : the latter to come to the rescue after a 
 miss with the first; as, of course, heavy shot kills 
 at longer distances than light. Should he prefer 
 shot of one size, then let him use No. 5. Per- 
 haps it may be as well not to confuse his practice 
 by projectiles of various sorts : and a good 
 authority declares, that for a shooter who goes 
 out for his morning's recreation, to shoot game 
 at fair sporting distances only, like a gentleman, 
 without any regard to destroying everything he 
 shoots at, this is the best and most sportsman- 
 like plan; shot of this medium size being 
 adapted to all seasons, and to all sorts of game, 
 except snipes. Some shooters mix their shot; 
 which certainly is not to be recommended. 
 
 As it is assumed that the gun used by the 
 young sportsman is a detonator, we will add a 
 word as to the choice and proof of the percussion 
 cap, which will fill up the catalogue of his field 
 necessaries; and conclude with a set of rules, 
 constructed, for the management of his shooting 
 equipage, by the celebrated gunmaker, Purdey. 
 Let your stock of caps be of the best quality : to 
 test their composition, and ascertain whether 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 they contain any fulminating mercury a most 
 dangerous ingredient, which causes them to ex- 
 plode with great violence throw a few into the 
 fire. If they then explode with a loud report, 
 reject them as unfit for use. Excellent caps, 
 however, may be counted on by those who deal, 
 for their shooting apparatus, with established 
 houses, and tradesmen of character. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR PERSONS USING DETONATING 
 GUNS. 
 
 LOAD with the cocks down. When ramming down 
 shot, observe the distance the end of the brass worm 
 is from the muzzle of the barrel, to prevent over- 
 charging. Always ram down hard. 
 
 Prime the last thing ; otherwise, in ramming 
 down the wadding, the powder will be driven into 
 the caps, and become so firmly compressed as to 
 destroy their effect. 
 
 Should the caps be put on by mistake prior to 
 loading, force them off with a turnscrew, and replace 
 them with new ones. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Never put the cocks down upon the caps when 
 the gun is loaded, as it compresses and spoils the 
 detonating powder, and is very dangerous; the cock 
 being liable to be lifted up, by catching hold of any 
 substance, and then falling, will explode the gun ; 
 but if left at half-cock, it cannot possibly happen. 
 
 Keep the copper caps dry; if exposed to the fire 
 for a few minutes, when required for use, in damp 
 weather, they will never fail. Take care that no oil 
 or grease get to them. 
 
 The caps made with the purified detonating pow- 
 der should always be used in preference to those 
 which are made with fulminating mercury, and called 
 "anti-corrosive." This powder is dangerous, as it 
 inflames with a veiy slight pressure, and detonates 
 with such extreme violence as frequently to burst 
 the shields of the cocks, and split the pegs, and 
 wear them out in a quarter of the time the other 
 does : it is likewise very foul, and will not keep. 
 It also injures the inside of the barrels and 
 breeches. 
 
 From the peculiar construction of detonating locks, 
 they should not be snapped either with or without the 
 copper caps, but in the act of shooting. When the 
 gun is loaded, the flash from the detonating powder 
 never enters the inside of the barrel ; but if snapped 
 upon the caps, when the gun is unloaded, it drives the 
 detonating gas into the barrels, which creates rust; 
 and if done without the caps, the works are liable to 
 be injured, by reason of the cocks meeting no resist- 
 ance in their fall, as in flint locks. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 The detonating pegs will last a season's hard shoot- 
 ing, but should by no means be used after the holes 
 are worn large by repeated firing ; as it will weaken 
 the force of the gun, and damage the locks. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR TAKING LOCKS TO PIECES, AND 
 PUTTING THEM TOGETHER AGAIN. 
 
 [Be careful not to mix the screws.] 
 
 Let down the cock. 
 
 Cramp the main-spring sufficiently to remove it. 
 
 Take off the bridle. 
 
 Press scear against scear-spring with the fore- 
 finger and thumb of the left or right hand, according 
 as the lock may be a left or a right side one ; and 
 having, with the fore-finger of the other hand, pushed 
 back the cock as far as it will go, let the scear-spring 
 go back gently, when the pivot of the scear is easily 
 lifted out of the hole, and the scear taken out. 
 
 Turn out the scear-spring screw, and take out the 
 spring. 
 
 Unscrew and take off the cock. 
 
 Take out the tumbler. 
 
 To put them together again, put in tumbler, and 
 screw on cock, so as to be down. 
 
 Put cock rather backwards, and screw on scear- 
 spring. 
 
XXV111 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Push cock as far back as it will go : put pivot of 
 scear into its proper hole ; and then taking hold of 
 scear with the thumb, and of the top of the cock 
 with the fore-finger of the right hand, if a right-hand 
 lock (and vice versa if a left), compress the spring, and 
 move the cock forwards and down. 
 
 Push forward the swivel, so that it may not inter- 
 fere with the screw, and drawing the cock a little for- 
 wards, slip the two holes in the bridle upon the heads 
 of the scear and tumbler pivot, and screw on the 
 bridle. 
 
 Having let down the cock, and pushed forward 
 the swivel as far as it will go, cramp the main-spring, 
 hook the end of it on the swivel, move it up into its 
 place on the lock-plate, and unscrew the cramp. 
 
 These directions will be found of service in the 
 ordinary arrangements and details of shooting gear. 
 The process of washing, drying, and preparing the 
 gun for use is too familiar to need a place in the 
 hand-book of the veriest tyro in rural sports. 
 
"!T is not every man's luck, 
 
 says Horace, " to go to 
 
 Corinth:" in like manner only 
 
 here and there a sportsman 
 
 has the fortune to try hi 
 
 hand at deer-stalking 
 
2 DEEE-STALKING. 
 
 to taste the highest flavour of shooting known to 
 the British islands. But that is no reason the cun- 
 ning of the noble pastime should not be set before 
 him. On the contrary, because his opportunities 
 of indulging in it if, indeed, he ever have any 
 will most certainly be " few and far between," the 
 best means of insuring success, should the chance 
 occur, ought to be made available to him. Details of 
 its stirring scenes and associations, the economy of 
 its perilous pleasure, while exciting his interest, will 
 serve to tell how stags were won and, it may be, 
 enable him to do so likewise : to this we address 
 ourselves. 
 
 The sport of deer-stalking, as pursued in Great 
 Britain, is followed only in certain portions of the 
 Scottish Highlands ; for though stags are shot in the 
 royal chases in England, as well as in private parks, 
 the method of doing so is far from sporting, and the 
 practice confined to game-keepers. The principal 
 districts where stalking is enjoyed are Athol Forest, 
 the Sutherland Forests, the Forest of Marr, the 
 Forest of Corrichbach, Lord Lovat's Ross-shire haunts, 
 Glenfiddich and Gaick in the county of the Gordon, 
 Glenartney, besides others of less note. The former 
 of these, Mr. Scrope states, contains an area of one 
 hundred thousand acres, and is upwards of forty 
 miles in length : it has, however, only recently been 
 devoted to the rearing and preserving of red deer. 
 The Sutherland Forests are fifty miles long, and 
 embrace some of the wildest scenery of Scotland. It 
 
DEER-STALKING. o 
 
 was in these wilds, according to the same authority, 
 that the last of the British wolves surrendered the 
 ghosU The Forest of Marr is remarkable for the 
 attempt made hy its proprietor, the Earl of Fife, to 
 introduce the wild boar into the catalogue of British 
 game. He turned out several of these savage porkers, 
 but it is supposed they departed this life from the 
 want of acorns. 
 
 Extensive, however, as the stalking grounds are, 
 they belong to a few great proprietors, who limit their 
 permission to share with them the royal sport to a 
 few great men. Only two individuals so favoured 
 have left us any record of their proceedings, these 
 are Mr. Scrope, already referred to, and Mr. John 
 Colquhoun, of Luss. The latter gentleman is quite an 
 enthusiast in all relating to the wild pastimes of his 
 mountain home, and writes of deer-stalking not only 
 as a thoroughly practical hand at it, but as one well 
 skilled in the fashion in which those about entering 
 on the campaign should take the field. 
 
 " The most propitious day for this sport," he says, 
 "is a cloudy one, with blinks of sunshine ; exactly 
 such as you would choose for fishing. When the sky 
 is cloudless, and the sun very dazzling, the herd are 
 apt to see you at a great distance, and take alarm. 
 High and changing wind is always very bad, as it 
 keeps them moving about in a wild and uneasy state. 
 In such weather it is better, if possible, to wait till it 
 settles a little, and take advantage of the first calm. 
 If the breeze be light they will riot move much, but 
 
4 DEER-STALKING. 
 
 a strong, steady wind, lasting for some days, will 
 always make the deer change their ground, by facing- 
 it often for miles. Mist is the worst of all, for the 
 deer are pretty sure to see you before you see them. 
 Always advance on deer from above, as they are much 
 less apt to look up than down a hill. If possible have 
 the sun at your back and in their face : with this ad- 
 vantage you may even venture to -approach them from 
 below. Birds, on the contrary, always look up, and 
 it is best to stalk them from the lower ground. If it 
 is a quiet spot, even if the sun is at your back, wait 
 for a clear blink before making your near approach. 
 Of course every one knows that it is out of the ques- 
 tion, under any circumstances, to attempt advancing 
 on deer unless the wind be favourable; so all other 
 directions are subject to this. 
 
 " In corries and hollows it is quite impossible to 
 know how the wind will blow upon a particular point, 
 unless you have marked every change of wind upon 
 every point of the corrie. After deer have been 
 stalked and shot at, they become much wilder; the 
 best sport with the old harts is therefore obtained at 
 the beginning of the season. They generally keep 
 together, and when their stately mien and branching 
 antlers are seen in the distance, it is enough to in- 
 spirit the most apathetic : but when told to cock his 
 double-barrelled rifle, I could well excuse a novice for 
 being scarcely able to obey. When there are hinds 
 in the herd, they often present themselves between 
 you and the unsuspecting harts ; but even should 
 
DEER-STALKING. 5 
 
 they be at a distance, great caution is necessary, as 
 if one hind gets a glimpse of the crouching enemy, 
 the whole herd, stags and all, are sure to scamper 
 away, amidst the bitter execrations of the forester 
 upon its hornless head. 
 
 " The next best time for a shot at a fine old stag, 
 after they have become wild, is about the beginning 
 of October, when each lot of hinds is sure to contain 
 a good hart. The chances may then not often be so 
 good, but, from the stags being dispersed, there are 
 more of them. If deer are feeding forward, it re- 
 quires very nice calculation, when at a distance, to 
 know the point they will arrive at by the time you 
 have neared them, especially as a gust of wind or a 
 shower of rain will quicken their motions. But if the 
 stalker is not far from the herd, which is feeding up 
 to his place of concealment with a favourable wind, 
 he should not grudge waiting ; for, by sending round 
 drivers to the windward of the deer, they are often 
 apt to turn and face them. I can't say that driving, 
 under any circumstances, gives half the pleasure that 
 stalking does : for my own part, I would rather kill 
 one stalked hart than several driven. 
 
 "Driving, however, upon a large scale, has a most 
 imposing effect ; and although it cannot be otherwise 
 than injurious to a forest, yet the exhilarating nature 
 of the whole proceedings, in which so many friends 
 may join, often makes the proprietor overlook the 
 consternation and panic it creates among the wild 
 and timid herd. Some part of the forest is selected 
 
 A3 
 
6 DEEK-STALKING. 
 
 to which the deer are to be driven : a great number 
 of hill men and shepherds, who thoroughly under- 
 stand what they are about, are then sent to the 
 farthest extremity to bring all the deer they can col- 
 lect to this spot : the passes, of course, being well 
 known, are occupied by the sportsmen with their 
 rifles. The drivers sometimes hallooing, and some- 
 times giving their wind, gradually contract their 
 circle, the deer are huddled together, and finding the 
 only clear ground in the direction of the rifles, slowly 
 and cautiously take their doomed way. There is often 
 great difficulty in driving them, as they are always 
 obliged to go with the wind, which their natural 
 instinct of self-preservation makes them very unwill- 
 ing to do, and, if they possibly can, they always 
 face it." 
 
 The implements of the deer-stalker are his rifle, 
 his telescope, and his hounds. Of these latter, Mr. 
 Colquhoun says, that Lord Breadalbane has a very- 
 superior kennel. They are for the most part a breed 
 between the foxhound and greyhound, but some are 
 between the deerhound and foxhound. The former 
 are reckoned the best winded. His lordship's forester 
 sets great store by them, and tells you that when 
 choosing a cold, that is, an unwounded hart, in com- 
 pany with hinds, they are so knowing, that should the 
 hart give them the slip at a burn or mountain 
 stream, and run down it, they stop their pursuit of 
 the hinds, recover his track, and hold him at bay all 
 night, should no one come to their relief. That no 
 
DEER-STALKING. 7 
 
 inferior animal should attend the deer-stalker may be 
 inferred from the fact, that a stag, with his fore leg 
 broken will often beat the fleetest greyhounds. A 
 very singular result of the hind leg of a hart being 
 broken is, that, in running he is almost certain to 
 fracture the other: whether from the additional 
 weight thrown upon it, or some other cause seems not 
 to be known. Red deer are as cunning as foxes, and 
 as game. In illustration of their cunning, they have 
 been observed to keep a dog at bay till he exhausted 
 himself with barking, and then, waiting till he had 
 lapped his fill of water, they bolted away refreshed 
 and rested, and soon left their pursuer behind. It 
 should be borne in mind, that deer are powerless in 
 the water. 
 
 The all-important agent, however, of such as have 
 the good fortune to take their pleasure among the 
 Scottish wilds in pursuit of the good dun-deer, is the 
 rifle. This description of fowling-piece, if it may be 
 so called, or more properly, sporting-piece, has, like 
 everything in gunnery, undergone great improvement 
 within the last twenty years. It is now frequently 
 two-grooved ; though it has been urged against this 
 plan, that the extreme rotatory impulse given to a 
 ball by a whole spiral turn in the grooves of the 
 barrel, occasions a sacrifice of velocity, and conse- 
 quently of range. The ball, by this mode of grooving, 
 is made to revolve two or three times as often as, 
 under the percussion principle, is found to be quite 
 sufficient for projecting the plain spherical ball with 
 
BEER- STALKING. 
 
 accuracy and effect. With the common sort of rifle, 
 the best size for red- deer shooting will be found that 
 which carries an ounce ball. The length of the barrel 
 should be from two feet four to two feet six inches. 
 
 THE RED DEER. 
 
DEEK-STALKING. 9 
 
 The red deer (Cervus Elephas) is also known as 
 the hart and the stag. The height of the British 
 stag is somewhere about four feet ; and he arrives at 
 great weight in some localities : in the Duke of 
 Athol's quarters it is asserted that stags have been 
 shot which weighed upwards of thirty stone. At 
 Woburn, we are told, they have reached thirty-four 
 stone ; while the predecessor of the present Glen- 
 garry is said to have killed one which, after the offal 
 was removed, weighed thirty-six stone. 
 
 The stag royal is the chieftain of the wild. 
 There was a tame one once kept at a shooting-lodge 
 of Lord Breadalbane's, which attacked all who came 
 near it, except the foresters, and at last was removed 
 to the park, at Taymouth. He became so savage and 
 expert with his antlers, that Mr. Colquhoun was 
 informed he had killed two horses, and that no one 
 dared to pass his haunt unless he knew them. The 
 red deer is fond of water, to which he has recourse as 
 well for pleasure, as for protection when pressed by 
 hounds. "We passed, during the day," writes a 
 highland stalker, " several forest-baths in full use 
 that is, moss-holes, where the stags plunge up to the 
 neck, and roll about to cool themselves, in summer 
 and autumn. When they come out again, black as 
 pitch, they look like the evil genii of the mountain. 
 In former times, poachers used to fasten spears, with 
 the points upwards, in these places, and when the 
 stag threw himself into the hole, he became impaled." 
 
 The full-grown harts, both male and female, 
 
10 DEER-STALKINO. 
 
 during the summer season, have back, flanks, and 
 thighs of a yellowish hrown, with a row of pale yellow 
 spots on the sides, and a black streak along the back- 
 bone. In the winter these parts assume a grey 
 brown, the quarters and tail only remaining a pale 
 buff. The head, neck, belly, and legs are of a grey 
 brown tint, a broad brown streak passing down the 
 forehead and nose. As the age of the animal in- 
 creases, its colours become darker, and most particu- 
 larly the male. This description is intended only to 
 apply to the family of European stags: as a race, 
 those of the British islands are distinguished by that 
 peculiar rufous tint, which has obtained for them the 
 title of red deer. 
 
 The stag is known from the hind by his horns, 
 by a beard of hair under the throat, and by tusks in 
 the upper jaw. The young of both sexes are called 
 calves. The male, to three years old, is a brocket ; 
 at four, a staggart ; at five, a warrantable stag ; and 
 afterwards, in the royal chaces, he is entitled a " hart 
 royal." The protuberances which denote the growth 
 of the horns, appear at about six months, in the shape 
 of two knobs, covered with a hairy coat ; in the second 
 year the horns come forth, but, generally, straight 
 and single. In the third year these roots put out 
 two antlers ; in the fourth, three ; in the fifth, four ; 
 and before the end of the sixth, there are six or 
 seven antlers on either side. However, this is no 
 strict rule, the branches differ constantly in shape 
 and number. In the Museum, at Hesse Cassel, they 
 
DEER-STALKING. 11 % 
 
 shew a horn having twenty-eight antlers ; while 
 Cuvier gives instances where a horn has had sixty- 
 two, and another sixty-three antlers. Colossal branches 
 are frequently found also in the Irish bogs ; indeed, 
 the wilds around the famed lakes of Killarney pro- 
 bably contain the finest family of red deer to be met 
 with in the British islands. 
 
 About the beginning of April the stag sheds his 
 horns a process which commences according to the 
 animal's age; the young often carry their head till 
 autumn. According to Mr. Scrope, the modem Robin 
 Hood, " they carry their horns as long as the hind 
 carries her fawn, that is to say, eight months. Both 
 horns do not necessarily fall at the same time ; a day 
 or two, or even more, occasionally intervene. Soon 
 after the old horn has fallen off, a soft tumour begins 
 to appear, which is quickly covered with a down-like 
 leaden-coloured velvet. This tumour is seen every 
 day to increase, like the graft of a tree, and, rising 
 by degrees, shoots out the antlers on each side. The 
 skin renjains to cover it for some time, and it con- 
 tinues to be furnished with blood-vessels, which 
 supply the growing horns with nourishment, and 
 occasion the furrows observable in them, when that 
 covering is stripped off. The impression is deeper 
 at the bottom, where the vessels are larger, and 
 diminishes towards the point, where they are smooth. 
 When the horns are at their full growth they acquire 
 strength and solidity, and the velvet covering, or 
 skin, with its blood-vessels, dries up, and begins to 
 
12 DEER-STALKING. 
 
 fall off; which the animal endeavours to hasten, hy 
 rubbiiig them against the trees : and in this manner 
 the whole head gradually acquires its complete hard- 
 ness, expansion, and heauty." The hind of the red 
 deer goes with its young a few days over eight 
 months. 
 
 In England, the sporting uses of this nohle 
 specimen of the deer tribe are confined to the field. 
 The red deer is the proper quarry of the stag-hunter. 
 For that purpose he forms as integral a portion of a 
 stag-hunting establishment as the hounds or horses. 
 Red deer are stabled and brought into hunting con- 
 dition by means of hard meat, and the ordinary hunt- 
 ing-stable process. Still, stag-hunting is not the 
 sport we would see the youth trained to, or we desired 
 should take honours in the science of woodcraft. 
 Stalk, young friend, the good dun deer, and ye will 
 (and have the opportunity) but leave the chase of the 
 calf to the cockney, and eke the household herd of 
 Diana's disciples. 
 
 Although we have attempted to initiate^ the un- 
 learned in the practical details of this first and most 
 regal sport, as at present used, it must not be for- 
 gotten that " its age of chivalry" hath long past away. 
 The golden era of deer-hunting, in all its branches, 
 must be placed at that epoch of an early history, 
 when every hill and mountain glen, every forest pass 
 and sylvan flat, every bog and morass was tenanted 
 by its fercB natures. The wild deer then held state 
 in the chase as the noblest of animals. It was far 
 
DEER-STALKING. 13 
 
 superior in size and qualities to that of our times. 
 We find from horns that have been dug up in several 
 parts of Scotland, that some large species of deer 
 must even have become extinct. Within how short 
 or how long a space of time, it would appear difficult 
 to determine. Portions of what are supposed to be 
 an enormous variation of the stag, have been also 
 discovered, at various intervals, in the mud beds and 
 bogs of Ireland. The horns of the Irish elk are 
 said to have measured five feet from the tips 
 to the roots, with an expansion of near eleven feet ! 
 It is easy for the mind to picture the British Isles 
 of the days of yore, as an aggregate of forest and 
 moorland, thinly be-scattered by the habitations of 
 man, while the beasts of the field out-numbered, by 
 countless hosts, the hairs of his head. And bring- 
 ing our view infinitely more within the focus of exa- 
 mination, we still find the stag one of the most 
 numerous of the families of animals, and the undis- 
 puted lord of its herds. The general hunting matches 
 of the Norman era prove the multitudes of deer 
 ranging at will in the royal chaces ; a thousand have 
 been killed at a single match. A hunting establish- 
 ment of these days was, indeed, a regal affair, encom- 
 passed with ceremonies, embarrassed with etiquettes, 
 and attended with distinctions, more gravely important 
 to the chieftains of those ages than we can now 
 altogether comprehend. No doubt, also, if the red 
 deer was then larger, the races of men were superior 
 in size and muscular power, and more hardy than at 
 
14 DEEK-STALKING. 
 
 present. Their frames were nurtured in climacteri- 
 cal exposures; their lungs were unoppressed to any 
 extent by the vitiated atmosphere of manufactories, 
 and unconsumed by the fiery ardours of fermented 
 liquors. The stalwart hunters and mighty men of 
 old knew nought of artificial light. The dawn and the 
 dusk, God's light and shadow, these were their 
 fashionable horologes ; the midday and twilight of 
 these were their fashionable periods of refection : and 
 thus, with breaths of morning dew and sinews of 
 iron, they prepared to take the field, and grasp the 
 " antlered monarch," if need were, in a hand to 
 horn grapple. Did 
 
 " not old custom make this life more sweet 
 Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 
 More free from peril than the envious court? 
 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
 The seasons' difference ; as, the icy fang 
 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind." 
 
 Already, at the Norman conquest, the red deer 
 had been hunted to the thinning of their species, and 
 our invaders did their utmost for its preservation and 
 increase. They exacted heavy fines from those who 
 trespassed on deer-enclosures, and life for life, if pre- 
 meditated, was the doom awarded to the biped who 
 slew the quadruped. Elaine gives a curious transla- 
 tion of a passage of Arrian's, relative to the stag- 
 hunting of the Anglo-Saxons. It is in the form of a 
 dialogue, and runs thus : 
 
 "I am a hunter to one of the kings. How do 
 
DEER-STALKING. 
 
 15 
 
 you exercise your art? I spread my nets, and set 
 them in a fit place, and instruct my hounds to pursue 
 the wild deer till they come to the nets unexpectedly, 
 and so are entangled, and I slay them in the nets. 
 Cannot you hunt without nets ? Yes ; with swift 
 hounds I follow the wild deer. What wild deer do 
 you chiefly take? Harts, boars, and rein deer, and 
 goats, and sometimes hares." 
 
 The slow but certain march of civilization, not- 
 withstanding every effort to the contrary, gradually 
 
16 DEER-STALKING. 
 
 all but extirpated many of the noblest denizens of the 
 forest. Boars, bears, wolves, antelopes, beavers, 
 these with us, at length, and at different periods, be- 
 came extinct. The stag, or hart, or red deer, re- 
 ceded as population advanced; the circle of its 
 retreats became narrower and narrower, until it 
 sprung upwards to the inaccessible fortresses of the 
 mountains ; and there intrenched, it appeared to have 
 become at once fierce, shy, and wary. This, at 
 times, in the Scotch holds, or the wild western tracts 
 of Ireland, would turn at bay, like the Roman in the 
 capitol, upon its pursuers, or leaping agilely beyond 
 their reach, roar out its challenge and defiance. This 
 description will not appear exaggerated to those who 
 are versed in the old border-tales of chivalry, like the 
 late lamented Sir Walter Scott, whose " Lady of the 
 Lake " embodies the gist of many of them in its vividly 
 splendid and graphic portraitures of the red deer and 
 its haunts. Still less will it be found to vary from 
 fidelity by the enthusiastic deer-stalker who has con- 
 quered the difficulties of the sport, or who glories in 
 them, and who finds in the stag a not less noble 
 though a less dangerous foe than the Highlander of 
 old. A Scot, of the time of Hemy the Eighth, thus 
 explained to that monarch the various uses besides 
 food for which the creature served : " We go a hunt- 
 ing, and after that we have slain red deer, we flay off 
 the skin bye and bye, and setting of our barefoot on 
 the inside thereof, for want of cunning shoemakers, 
 we play the cobbler, compassing and measuring so 
 
DEEB-STALKINO. 17 
 
 much thereof as shall reach up to our ancles, pricking 
 the upper part thereof with holes, that the water may 
 repass where it enters, and stretching it up with a 
 strong thong of the same above our ancles. So, and 
 please your Grace, we make our shoes. Therefore 
 we using such manner of shoes, the rough hairy side 
 outwards, in your Grace's dominions of England we 
 be called * Rough-footed Scots.' " 
 
 In Ireland there is still a solitary remnant of 
 wild stag hunting, followed much after the fashion of 
 the early days of the sport. This is pursued on the 
 banks of the lake of Killarney with much zest. It is 
 said that the French invasion (in 1798) of that country, 
 placed so many arms in the hands of the western pea- 
 santry, as to occasion the extermination of the red 
 deer of this locality. For, still keeping their weapons 
 of offence after the danger was over, they turned them 
 upon these noble animals. An anecdote is related of 
 the immense power of the wild stag. The Emperor 
 Basilius was attacked by a red deer of great size, 
 which lifted him from his horse by merely entangling 
 one of his horns in the sovereign's belt : although the 
 Emperor was quickly released from his enemy by the 
 assistance of his equerry, the bruises received in 
 the attack proved incurable. The Normans hunted 
 the wild stag on horseback at a time they had 
 not universally retreated to such mountain-holds 
 as Klibreck, Ben- Avon, Ben-Nevis, and the wild and 
 almost inaccessible reaches of Applecross and Gair- 
 loch. Such haunts would affright the boldest rider, 
 
 B2 
 
18 DEER- STALKING. 
 
 and scare even Mazeppa's steed. We extract from 
 Taylor's " Pennilesse Pilgrimage" the graphic ac- 
 count given of the Earl of Marr's famous hunt of 
 the red deer in the year 1618: "The manner 
 of the hunting is this : five or six hundred men 
 doe rise early in the morning, and they doe dis- 
 perse themselves various ways, and seven, eight, 
 or even ten miles compass they doe bring or chase 
 in the deer in many heards (two, three, or four 
 hundred in a heard) to such or such a place, as the 
 noblemen shall appoint them ; then, when the day is 
 come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies 
 doe ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading 
 up to the middles through bournes and rivers ; and 
 then, they being come to the place, doe lye down on 
 the ground till those foresaid scouts, which are called 
 the tinckell, doe bring down the deer; but as the 
 proverb says of a bad cook, so these tinckell-men doe 
 lick their own fingers; for besides their bows and 
 arrows which they carry with them, wee can hear now 
 and then a harquebusse going off, which they doe sel- 
 dom discharge in vain; then after we had stayed 
 three houres, or thereabouts, we might perceive the 
 deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads 
 making a show like a wood), which being followed close 
 by the tinckell, are chased down into the valley where 
 wee lay ; then all the valley on each side being way- 
 laid with a hundred couple of strong Irish grey- 
 hounds, they are let loose as occasion serves upon the 
 heard of deere, that with the dogs, gunnes, arrowes, 
 
DEER-STALKING. 19 
 
 durks, and daggers, in the space of two houres four- 
 score fat deere were slaine, which after were disposed, 
 some one way and some another, twenty or thirty 
 miles ; and more than enough left for us to make 
 merry withal at our rendezvous. Being come to our 
 lodgings there was such haking, boyling, roasting, and 
 stewing, as if cook ruffian had been there to have 
 scalded the devill in his feathers the kitchen being 
 alwayes on the side of a banke, many kettles and pots 
 boyling, and many spits tuniing and winding, with 
 great varietye of cheere, as venison baked, sodden, roast, 
 and stu'de ; beef, mutton, goates, kid, hares, fish, 
 salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridge, 
 moorcoots, heathcocks, caperkillies, and termagents, 
 good ale, sacke white and claret, tente (or alligant), 
 and most potent aqua vita. All this, and more than 
 these, we had continually in superfluous abundance, 
 caught by faulconers, fowlers, fishers, and brought by 
 my Lord Marr's tenants and purveyors to vitual our 
 camp, which consisted of fourteen or fifteen hundred 
 men and horses." 
 
 It is said that the red deer may be usefully 
 domesticated, although with more difficulty than the 
 other species. Martial relates of a deer that he 
 was used to the bridle ; and Montaigne alludes 
 to the famous present made to the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian, of a deer swifter than a barb, that bore both 
 saddle and bridle ! We cannot resist giving the 
 young sportsman, in conclusion, Christopher North's 
 portraiture of the death of the red deer, it is so 
 
20 DEER-STALKING. 
 
 thoroughly graphic : " Yonder, by the hirches, stands 
 a red deer, snuffing the east wind ! He suspects an 
 enemy in that airt ; but death comes upon him, with 
 stealthy foot, from the west : and if Apollo and Diana 
 be now propitious, his antlers shall be entangled in 
 the heather, and his hoofs beat the heavens. Flourish 
 the rifle a tinkle as of iron and a hiss accompanying 
 the explosion and the king of the wilderness, bound- 
 ing up into the air with his antlers higher than ever 
 waved chieftain's plume, falls down stone dead where 
 he stood ; for the blue pill has gone through his 
 vitals, and lightning itself could hardly have withered 
 him into more instantaneous cessation of life ! He 
 is an enormous animal ! What antlers ! Roll him over 
 once on his side See ! up to our breast reaches the 
 topmost branch ! He is a ' stag of ten ;' his eye 
 has lost the flash of freedom the tongue that browsed 
 the brushwood is bitten through by the clenched 
 teeth the fleetness of his feet has felt that fatal 
 frost the wild heart is hushed and tame ! and there 
 the monarch of the mountains the king of the cliffs 
 the grand lama of the glens the sultan of the soli- 
 tudes the dey of the deserts the royal ranger of 
 the woods and forests yea, the very prince of the 
 air, and thane of thunder, ' shorn of all his beams, 1 
 lies motionless as a dead jackass by the way-side ! 
 he, who at dawn had borrowed the wings of the wind 
 to carry him across the cataracts ! " 
 
CHAPTER IT, 
 
 GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 COME where the heather bell, 
 
 Child of the highland dell, 
 Breathes its coy fragrance o'er moorland and lea ; 
 
 Gaily the fountain sheen 
 
 Leaps from the mountain green : 
 Come to our highland home, blithesome and free ! 
 
 See, through the gloaming, 
 
 The young mom is coming, 
 Like a bridal veil round her the silver mist curled : 
 
 Deep as the ruby's rays, 
 
 Bright as the sapphire's blaze, 
 The banner of day in the east is unfurled. 
 
 The red grouse is scattering 
 
 Dews from his golden wing, 
 Gemmed with the radiance that heralds the day : 
 
 Peace in our highland vales, 
 
 Health in our mountain gales ; 
 Who would not hie to the moorlands away ? 
 
 Far from the haunts of man, 
 
 Mark the grey ptarmigan, 
 Seek the lone moorcock, the pride of our dells ; 
 
 Birds of the wilderness, 
 
 Here is their resting-place, 
 'Mid the brown heath where the mountain roe dwells. 
 
** GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 Come, then ! the heather bloom 
 
 Woos with its wild perfume ; 
 Fragrant and blithesome thy welcome shall be : 
 
 Gaily the fountain sheen 
 
 Leaps from the mountain green ; 
 Come to our home of the moorland and lea. 
 
 THERE is no species of rural sport of which the 
 characteristics are so picturesque and so wild as 
 those of grouse shooting. Fox hunting and wood- 
 cock shooting both lead their disciples " remote 
 from cities ; " but though they be wild sports, the 
 season of the year peculiar to them divests the 
 scenes in which they are pursued of all the attributes 
 of picturesque or beautiful. It is the golden time of 
 the year to the young amateur of the trigger. 
 
 We are still among the hills and moors of the 
 " land of brown heath ; " for, after all, for moorfowl 
 shooting, Scotland is the only place. In many dis- 
 tricts of Ireland grouse abound among the wilder- 
 nesses of bog with which "that country is overrun ; 
 and in the northern counties of England they have 
 been of late so carefully preserved as to afford fair 
 sport: but " Caledonia, stern and wild," is the 
 chosen land of the grouse shooter. Few attempt the 
 sport in the Welch mountains, except such as happen 
 to be to the matter born the native Taffies or 
 their guests " in the season of the year." In Scot- 
 land, shooting-quarters are as commonly let to yearly 
 tenants or on lease, as the use of the land is hired 
 out to the farmer. We do not pretend to offer coun- 
 sel to those who are about to rent a " shooting," 
 
-GEOUSE SHOOTING. 23 
 
 further than by hinting, that, as a general principle, 
 they use circumspection before concluding their 
 bargains. The historian, Joe Miller, relates that a 
 party who purchased an estate warranted to contain 
 a hanging wood, found a gibbet in one of the fields. 
 We imagine a good many who have taken Highland 
 quarters on the assurance that they would furnish 
 red game, discovered that the supply was chiefly con- 
 fined to the carroty gillies that go with the ground in 
 capacity of markers lucus a non lucendo. 
 
 Grouse shooting, according to act of parliament, 
 commences in Scotland on the 12th, and in Ireland 
 on the 20th of August. Of course there are sea- 
 sons in which the packs are more mature in June 
 than in others in October ; but that has nothing to 
 do with the matter : we are speaking of an act of 
 parliament, which, of course, has nothing to do with 
 reason or common sense. Those who take time 
 by the forelock, and begin at the commencement of 
 the season, have light work of it like all who have 
 to deal with novices particularly of the feathered 
 family. We will imagine our beginner, in both 
 senses of the word, has reached his quarters in good 
 time as becomes a sportsman. I do not mean by 
 good time the peep of morning, eight or nine 
 o'clock is quite early enough ; give the birds time to 
 eat their breakfasts, or they are off before you get 
 within visiting distance. In contradistinction to the 
 maxim, " the early bird gets the first worm," it is 
 notorious that he who uncouples his dogs among the 
 
24 GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 heather at nine, fills his bag more surely and satis- 
 factorily than he who goes to work when the stars 
 are up. When grouse have done feeding they lie 
 better, and afford more double shots ; to say nothing 
 of scattering the packs conveniently for the evening 
 sport. Besides, let him be assured that walking a 
 highland moor for twelve hours is by no means exer- 
 cise to be sneered at. 
 
 The grouse shooter should begin at the lowest point 
 down wind, thereby giving his dogs the advantage 
 of drawing up. His object also must be to drive the 
 birds towards some central portion of his beat. He 
 will be attended by two or three sharp fellows, for the 
 purpose of marking down the packs he flushes, as 
 well as turning them into his quarters. If he has a 
 companion, one of the two should make a wide circle 
 so as to head and stop them, for they will often run 
 half a mile or more after they are set. When a pack 
 is on the wing, and appears to have flown beyond the 
 reach of sight, keep the eye forward in the direction 
 they have taken, and you may observe them when 
 they flap their wings previous to alighting. The 
 colour of the plumage being so like that of the 
 heather, is the reason you cannot distinguish them 
 when skimming just above it in rapid flight. 
 
 Should your beat range along a mountain side, 
 the birds will be less likely to leave the ground. 
 When flushed or put up, they will, most probably, 
 fly along the hill side ; and, after a turn or two taken 
 when out of your sight, they will alight, though at 
 
GROUSE SHOOTING. 25 
 
 some distance, upon the slope or declivity. The 
 nature of the ground and the wind must furnish 
 hints as to their probable position ; but if you mark 
 the direction of their flight, when preparing to settle, 
 it will help you to a shrewd guess. Early in the 
 year, and before they have been much shot, they will 
 be found always loathe to leave the places where they 
 are met with. As a rule, it may be observed, that all 
 game, when raised, are apt to settle on lower ground. 
 Moreover, when they begin to move on the feed, they 
 are more easily winded than when at rest, and, of 
 course, more easily brought to a point ; for which reason, 
 towards evening the best sport may be looked for. 
 
 Whatever may be your ignorance or experience of 
 the district you are shooting over, the best plan will 
 always be to consult the shepherds and keepers as to 
 where the packs are most plentiful, and arrange your 
 mode of operation accordingly. When hatching time 
 has been wet, the best broods will be found high up 
 the hills ; when very dry or sultry, in the flats and 
 hollows between them. But even this will depend 
 upon the peculiarities of the districts ; for instance, if 
 there be rills, or any supply of water high up the 
 hills, or even on their sides, there will the grouse be 
 met with. People accustomed to the neighbourhood 
 can help you to these particulars, to a certainty ; very 
 likely to more important information, the resort of 
 the game you are seeking. 
 
 When you have gone forth, and are on the ground 
 you purpose beating, avoid such spots as are bare of 
 
26 GBOUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 cover, and where the heath has been burnt; but 
 where patches of old and young heather lie scattered 
 around, together with mossy rivulets and peat-pools 
 filled with water, look out for a point. In the middle 
 of the day, particularly when the weather is sultry, 
 grouse lie without moving, and are, consequently, 
 very difficult to find. Storms or high winds make 
 them very wild ; the best way to approach them then 
 is from below; they cannot see you so plainly as 
 when descending from ground above them. In rain 
 it is next to impossible to fall in with them, beside it 
 being very questionable fun to range up to the loins in 
 a sort of vegetable ocean ; they wont " road" an inch, 
 having, like yourself, no taste for wandering in bowers 
 as moist as the coral gardens of the Nereides, and take 
 wing before you are within bomb practice range. 
 
 You must not beat over the same line too often ; 
 if constrained ever so much for want of room, not 
 more than twice a week. When disturbed, or broken, 
 grouse do not pack together again sometimes for a 
 day or two. These birds are said, by some writers, 
 to change their lying according to the state of the 
 weather. This is not true as regard localities, 
 but only in reference to haunts. As shelter from 
 strong sunshine, tempest, or rain, they resort to the 
 lee of a hill, or betake them to strong heather, but 
 only where such come within scope of their ordinary 
 flight. Neither do they wander far to feed. They 
 will merely make to the nearest patch of young 
 heather, the fresh tops of which constitute their food, 
 
GKOUSE SHOOTING. 27 
 
 for the most part, all the year round. In frost and 
 snow they are occasionally found among the " stooks" 
 of oats, which, there, often lie out till Christmas. 
 
 You are not to count on this wild mountain sport, 
 young shooter, as an achievement to be compassed 
 without earnest exertion ; what then ? 
 
 " Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, 
 
 And marvel men should quit their easy chair, 
 The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace 
 
 Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air, 
 And life, which bloated ease can never hope to share ! " 
 
 As Byron says " never mind the pain," your delight 
 will "physic it;" which, according to Shakspere, 
 means, will "cure it:" wherefore we take it " doc- 
 toring" was a very different affair a couple of cen- 
 turies ago from what it is now. Let your care be 
 for your dog and your gun. If you will take our 
 counsel, your dogs shall be pointers ; and use all 
 zeal, and the experience of older heads than your 
 own, in their selection. Have a horror of near 
 rangers; they are the very worst of all for moor- 
 shooting. Of these that is, pointers hunt a 
 brace at a time, it will be quite enough. Before 
 buying your dogs see that they have round, hard 
 feet, and are well "hung" upon their legs, to 
 borrow an expression from the coach-maker's vo- 
 cabulary. Above all, look to the head " the know- 
 ledge-box," as it is vulgarly, but most aptly, called. It 
 ought to be broad between the ears, which should 
 hang down close, with a fall or dent under the eyes ; 
 
28 GEOUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 the nose long and not broad ; the nostrils very soft 
 and moist. You will, of course, ascertain that they 
 are of a pure breed ; with such you can hardly fail to 
 obtain great excellence, by never allowing a fault 
 to go unnoticed ; by not chastising them so severely 
 as to break their courage ; and by killing plenty of 
 game over them ; which, indeed, will equally serve to 
 give spirit to your own exploits. Never permit a dog 
 to run in when a bird falls. The best remedy for this 
 mischievous vice is the collar, called "trash collar," 
 and spike. If you have patience enough, in the first 
 instance let him run in and tear his bird to pieces, 
 while you load ; this may make him ashamed of him- 
 self. Then walk up quietly, and without noticing the 
 remnants of the grouse, take him by the ear back to 
 the spot whence you fired, shaking him earnestly, 
 crying " down." Then take your whip, and lay it 
 over him well, calling out between every stripe, 
 "down, down." Continue this for some time, and 
 when you have done beating, force him to remain 
 down for several minutes. Then, speaking slowly to 
 him, lead him to where the dead bird lies, and lift it 
 before his nose. By following this system upon every 
 occasion of a dog running in unless he be good for 
 nothing you will cure him of running at shot. Re- 
 member, always making a dog fall down when birds rise, 
 is the only way to ensure his steadiness in the field. 
 
 Christopher North says somewhere, that "shooting 
 grouse after red deer, is for a while, at least, felt to 
 be like writing an anagram in a lady's album, after 
 
GROUSE SHOOTING. 29 
 
 having given the finishing touch to a tragedy or an 
 epic poem. 'T is like taking to catching shrimps in 
 the sand with one's toes, on one's return from Davis 's 
 Straits in a whaler that arrived at Peterhead with 
 sixteen fish, each calculated at ten tuns of oil." 
 Elsewhere he says, " We do not admire that shooting- 
 ground which resembles a poultry-yard. Grouse and 
 barn-door fowls are constructed on opposite principles ; 
 the former being wild, the latter tame creatures, 
 when in their respective perfection. Of all dull 
 pastimes, the dullest seems to us sporting in a pre- 
 serve ; and we believe that we show that feeling with 
 the Grand Signior. The sign of a lonely inn in the 
 Highlands ought not to be the Hen and Chickens. 
 Some shooters, we know, sick of common sport, love 
 slaughter. From sunrise to sunset of the first day 
 of the moors they must bag their hundred brace. 
 That can only be done where pouts prevail, and 
 cheepers keep chiding; and where you have half a 
 dozen attendants to head your double barrels sans 
 intermission, for a round dozen of hours spent in a 
 perpetual fire. Commend us to a plentiful sprinkling 
 of game ; to ground which seems occasionally barren, 
 and which it needs a fine instructed eye to traverse 
 scientifically, and thereof to detect the latent riches. 
 Fear and hope are the deities of the moors, else 
 would they lose their witchcraft. A gentleman ought 
 not to shoot like a gamekeeper, any more than at 
 billiards to play like a marker ; nor with four in hand 
 ought he to tool his prads like the Portsmouth 
 
 c 2 
 
30 GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 dragsman shoot in a style equidistant from that 
 of the gamekeeper on the one hand, and the bagman 
 on the other : neither killing nor missing eveiy bird ; 
 but, true to the spirit of the Aristotelian doctrine, 
 leaning with a decided inclination towards the first 
 rather than the second predicament. If we shoot 
 too well one day, we are pretty sure to shoot as ill 
 another ; in short, we shoot like gentlemen, scholars, 
 poets, philosophers, as we are ; and, looking at us, 
 you have a sight 
 
 ' Of him who walks in glory and in joy, 
 Following his " dog" upon the mountain side ;' 
 
 a man evidently not shooting for a wager, and per- 
 forming a match from the mean motives of avarice 
 or ambition ; but blazing away ' at his own sweet will,' 
 and, without seeming to know it, making a great 
 noise in the world. Look with thine eyes on yonder 
 bank yonder sunny bank, beneath the shades of that 
 fantastic cliff's superincumbent shadow seest thou 
 not basking there a miraculous amount of feathers ? 
 They have packed, Hamish they have packed, early * 
 as it is yet in the season; and the question is, What 
 shall we do? We have it. Take up a position, 
 Hamish, about a hundred yards in the rear; on 
 yonder knoll, with the colonel's sweeper. Fire from 
 the rest; mind, from the rest, right into the centre 
 of that bed of plumage, and we shall be ready with 
 Brown Bess and her sister to pour in our quartette 
 upon the remains as they rise, so that not escape 
 
GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 31 
 
 shall one single feather. Let our covering ' to the 
 present ' be your signal. Bang ! Whew ! What a 
 flutter ! Now take that, and that, and that, and that ! 
 Ha, Hamish, as at the springing of a mine, the 
 whole company has perished! Collect the dead. 
 Twenty-one ! Life is short, and by this compendious 
 style we take Time by the forelock ! " 
 
 RED GROUSE. 
 
 The Red Grouse (Tetrao Scoticus of LinnaBus), or 
 moor-fowl, is well entitled to head the catalogue of 
 British game birds, inasmuch as it is peculiar to 
 these islands, never having been found elsewhere. It 
 belongs to the ptarmigan family, in common with the 
 varieties of its species, under the heads of the caper- 
 calzie and the black cock, as well as the partridge 
 and quail, also individuals of the class Tetraonida. It 
 
32 GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 is still plentiful in England, Scotland, and in Ireland. 
 It is found in the northern counties of England, and 
 in most of the Scottish islands, as well as the conti- 
 nent of that kingdom. It was formerly abundantly 
 spread over the more southerly districts of North 
 Britain; hut the sportsman of modern days must 
 now intrench himself in the Highlands, whither 
 cultivation has not yet extended : and in the most 
 remote parts of these, such as the Cairngorm range, 
 Sutherland, and the highlands of Rosse, he will still 
 find the red grouse nearly unchanged in hahits and 
 disposition. There he is still the continuous inha 
 hitant of the moor ; still, as it were, the indigenous 
 creation of the land of rock and heather, of lake and 
 glen. There, at dawn, shall he be tracked by his 
 loud shrill call; and there, at set of sun, shall his 
 note enliven the picturesque solitude. In summer, 
 it is true, the curlew's whistle, and the mournful cry 
 of the golden plover, may vary the monotony of the 
 grouse's call ; but in winter he shall seem, with the 
 red deer, the only animate thing for miles around. 
 Here it is not fearful, as in the cultivated districts ; 
 nor, until warned by the gun, will it become wild 
 and w T ary, but permit the approach of man unremarked 
 but by the peculiar note which is probably one of 
 warning to his family. When cultivation advances 
 into the moors, either wholly or in part, its ordinary 
 effect is observed in the retiring of the game, in 
 thinning their numbers, and in an alteration of the 
 habits of the birds and their choice of food. In the 
 
GROUSE SHOOTING. 33 
 
 midst of the wildest districts may now be found de- 
 tached spots of culture. Here the grouse, instead of 
 feeding on the odorous heath- tops, and other aromatic 
 mountain-plants picked from beneath the snow, will 
 migrate for their winter's food to these grounds and 
 enclosures ; where, before the grain is cleared off, 
 they will rob the crops of the husbandman, and 
 obtain a liberal supply. Where the grain, in the 
 midst of December snows, still lags out, the stooks 
 invariably might be seen crowded with grouse. In 
 the lower lands they arrive as gleaners, and hunt for 
 that which has been scattered and left in the stubble, 
 or even in the ploughed fields. The birds that feed 
 thus on grain are esteemed by no means of so de- 
 lectable a flavour as those that pasture on the delicate 
 young heather. Not a tenth of the number of birds 
 formerly seen are now observed, save, as we have 
 said, in the remoter wastes and solitudes ; and the 
 shyness and wariness of those that remain, render 
 them difficult, nay, well nigh impossible of approach. 
 Their plumage mingles with the dark brown moss 
 and heath in such unbroken uniformity, as to deceive 
 the eye of the most practised sportsman : the pointer 
 is his best friend and assistant in the discovery of 
 grouse which have been at all disturbed by the sports- 
 man, however superior and more attractive may be 
 the dash of the setter among the blue heath in the 
 early part of the season. 
 
 The red grouse pairs very early in the year, even, 
 in a mild month, in January. The female begins to 
 
34 GROUSE SHOOTING. 
 
 lay her eggs at the close of March, depositing them 
 in hollow cavities at the base of heathery tufts, which 
 serve both for a sort of concealment, and for pro- 
 tection from the weather. She floors the nest with 
 a straw or two, or a few blades of grass. Here both 
 parents watch over their brood, and pertinaciously 
 defend it from the attacks of every assailant ; in 
 many known cases successfully protecting their eggs 
 from the bold attacks of the carrion crow. The 
 greatest foe of the young of the red grouse, as it is at 
 present found, is the tape-worm ; by which, in occa- 
 sional seasons, it is so terribly ravaged, that it be- 
 comes nearly extirpated in districts so infested. 
 After this, their most pestilent natural enemy may 
 be deemed in importance the common crow, who 
 vigorously attacks the ground-nests in order to carry 
 off the eggs. The early plumage of the young bird 
 takes its hues from the female, which is of a pale 
 ground tint, marked with white bars, only there is 
 more red in the feathers of the young. Its adult 
 plumage is a rich reddish brown (sienna brown), 
 deepening in shade on the belly to black, with pale 
 tips, and barred across with deep brown. There is 
 variety, however, discovered in the markings ; for 
 some of the early birds are considerably marked with 
 white underneath. Some deem this, we believe erro- 
 neously, a sign of age. The female is altogether of 
 fainter hues, and the palest colours are the largest. 
 The feathers of both birds change at breeding time, 
 becoming more decided in colour, with pale yellowish 
 
GEOUSE SHOOTING. 35 
 
 white tips, and interlined with yellow. Also, the 
 bare skin above the eyes, which is a prevalent feature 
 of the family of the Tetraonidce-, increases in size and 
 depth of colour. It is supposed that diversity of pasture 
 produces diversity of plumage in the red grouse. Sir 
 William Jardine had a grouse, shot on the moors of 
 Galloway, whose ground colour was yellowish white, 
 and whose dark markings were reddish brown, much 
 lighter than the ordinary hue, while the quills were 
 dirty white. Mr. Selby speaks of a cream-coloured 
 or pale grey variety on the Blanchland moors of 
 Durham, that seems to have bred and continued the 
 diversity from year to year. The red grouse is a bird 
 easily tamed; we have known them familiar with 
 man. They even lay when in confinement. Jardine 
 mentions a brood hatched under a ki tchen- dresser ; 
 and many have been bred in aviaries. The young 
 thus hatched are seldom reared to maturity ; a failure 
 no doubt produced by the need of some food not 
 known, or unattainable in their domesticated condition. 
 
 Lag opus. Generic characters : bill very short, 
 clothed at the base with feathers, which conceal the 
 nostrils ; wings short, somewhat rounded, with the 
 third and fourth quills longest ; tail short, and nearly 
 square at extremity ; tarsi and toes covered with hair- 
 like feathers, sometimes over the claws, which are long, 
 straight, and rather flattened. Types : L. Scoticus, &c., 
 Europe ; north parts of North America ; Arctic circle. 
 
 Note. Monogamous ; gregarious in winter; habits 
 entirely terrestrial. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAPERCALZIE SHOOTING. 
 
 THIS right royal gunnery, though for the present 
 extinct among us, holds out promise of being restored 
 at no very distant time. The vast forests of fir 
 which begin to clothe the Scottish mountains offer 
 home and fitting food for this king of game birds ; 
 and the efforts recently made by their proprietors to 
 renew the race, by importations from the north of 
 Europe, can hardly fail of final success. Mr. Lloyd, 
 the Swedish traveller, was influenced by Mr. Fowell 
 Buxton, the wealthy London brewer, to procure a 
 supply, which he did to the amount of twenty-nine. 
 These Mr. Buxton presented to the Marquis of 
 Breadalbane. The history of this attempt to restore 
 the cock of the wood to the game of the British 
 islands is given in some letters, addressed by a son 
 of Mr. Fowell Buxton to Mr. Blaine, and published 
 in that gentleman's admirable work, " An Encyclo- 
 paedia of Rural Sports." 
 
 After detailing the reasons which induced his 
 father to send a commission to Mr. Lloyd to procure 
 
CAPEBCALZIE SHOOTING. 37 
 
 for him a cargo of Capercalzie a proposal made by 
 him to Lord Breadalbane to attempt the restoration 
 of that bird upon the occasion of his shooting with 
 that nobleman over his moors he proceeds to state, 
 that the number above named reached England in 
 1837, in charge of his father's Irish gamekeeper. 
 A portion of these birds were turned out in tne 
 autumn of that year, and the remainder kept in a 
 house. In 1838, he tells us, a brace only was 
 reared by the keeper, but two fine broods were seen 
 in the woods. In the summer of 1838, sixteen hens 
 were forwarded to Taymouth ; so that in all thirteen 
 cock capercalzies and twenty-nine hens reached Lord 
 Breadalbane, the others being destroyed by the ca- 
 sualties of travel. In the spring of 1839, instead of 
 attempting to rear any capercalzies, Mr. Guthrie 
 (Lord Breadalbane 's head keeper) placed eggs, laid by 
 the birds kept in the house, in the nests of grey-hens, 
 who hatched and brought them up in a wild state. 
 According to this keeper's account, the ex- 
 periment was very successful. In 1839, he states 
 that forty-nine young capercalzies were born in the 
 district under his care ; but unfortunately they could 
 hardly be said to have been brought up, as the 
 poachers were soon upon them, and they made their 
 appearance in the shops of the Edinburgh poulterers : 
 " A hen has been offered this season to a poulterer 
 in Princes Street." Now, we would ask apropos of 
 the existing dilemma of the game legislators why 
 was not the offerer transferred to the care of a police- 
 
38 CAPERCALZIE SHOOTING. 
 
 officer ? If a giraffe had been submitted to his ac- 
 ceptance, we presume he would have asked the seller 
 where he procured his merchandise ; and a caper- 
 calzie was at the time as little likely to have come 
 honestly into the hands of a Highland gillie as a 
 cameleopard. But then the cock of the wood was 
 only game, and game stood and stands in the con- 
 ventional category of no man's chattels ; the fact 
 that very probably the papa and mamma of the 
 capercalzie aforesaid stood Mr. Fowell Buxton in as 
 much as a pair of his dray-horses, to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 We know but little of the fair sporting after the 
 capercalzie. Mr. Grieff affords us a melancholy 
 account of its slaughter in his country, Sweden. 
 There, he informs us, it is shot in the night-time, 
 by torch-light. This plan, wilich he states it as his 
 opinion is very destructive, and we should think on 
 good grounds, is, he believes, principally confined to 
 the southern provinces, and thus effected : 
 
 " Towards nightfall, people watch the last flight of 
 the capercalzie before they go to roost. The direc- 
 tion they have taken into the forest is then carefully 
 marked by means of a prostrate tree, or by one 
 which is felled for the purpose. After dark, two 
 men start in pursuit of the birds ; one of them is 
 provided with a gun, the other with a long pole, to 
 either end of which a flambeau is attached. The 
 man with the flambeau now goes in advance, the 
 other remaining at the prostrate tree to keep it and 
 
CAPERCALZIE SHOOTING. 39 
 
 the two lights in an exact line with each other ; by 
 this curious contrivance they cannot well go astray 
 in the forest. Thus they proceed, occasionally halt- 
 ing, and taking a fresh mark, until they come near 
 to the spot where they have reason to suppose the 
 birds are roosting. They now carefully examine the 
 trees, and when they discover the objects of their 
 pursuit, which are said to remain stupidly gazing at 
 the fire blazing beneath, they shoot them at their 
 leisure. Should there be capercalzies in the same 
 tree, however, it is always necessary to shoot those 
 on the lower branches in the first instance : for, 
 unless one of these birds falls on its companions, it 
 is said the rest will never move ; and, in consequence, 
 the whole of them may be readily killed." 
 
 Now this we are constrained to pronounce poach- 
 ing even to the reproach of innermost Cockaigne. 
 Hear how Mr. Brehm, another Swede, used to go 
 about his sport : " I usually shot the capercalzie," 
 he says, " in company with my Lapland dog, Bru- 
 nette, a cocker. She commonly flushed them from 
 the ground, where, for the purpose of feeding on 
 berries, &c., they are much during the autumn 
 months. In this case, if they only saw the dog, 
 their flight in general was short, and they soon 
 perched in the trees. Now as Brunette has the eye 
 of an eagle" (brunettes mostly have) " and the foot of 
 an antelope, she was not long in following them. 
 Sometimes, however, these birds were in the pines 
 in the first instance ; but as my dog was possessed 
 
40 
 
 CAPEBCALZIE SHOOTING. 
 
 of an extraordinary fine sense of smelling, she would 
 often wind or, in other words, scent them for a very 
 long distance. When she found the capercalzie, she 
 would station herself under the tree where the bird 
 was sitting, and by keeping up a constant barking, 
 direct my steps towards the spot." Should our 
 young friends ever have occasion to shoot this bird, 
 we trust they will adopt the plan of Mr. Brehm, in 
 preference to that of Mr. Grieff. 
 
 THE CA.FEB.CALZIE. 
 
 The Wood Grouse, or Capercalzie (Tetrao Uro- 
 gallus), known to British naturalists as Cock of the 
 
CAPERCALZIE SHOOTING. 41 
 
 Wood. The capercalzie is the largest and strongest 
 of the birds of this section (Tetraonida) of the Rasores. 
 It is also the most beautiful in plumage. We speak 
 in the present tense, although the original caper- 
 calzie of the British Islands must be deemed to 
 have been for many years utterly extinct; those at 
 the present day, found or reared in our country, 
 being, in the first case, importations from Sweden, 
 and various parts of northern Europe. The power- 
 ful hooked bill of the male bird resembles that of a 
 bird of prey ; it is yellowish white, deeper in hue at 
 the end. The head and neck are dark grey, approaching 
 towards black. The feathers of the body are darkest 
 in their centres, and closely interspersed with minute 
 black dots ; they are of lance-like form. Those 
 below the chin are longer and raised at will; quite 
 black, but bordered with a beautiful glossy fringe of 
 purple and green hues. Below the eyes are patches 
 of white. The top of the back is of a splendid 
 orange-brown, freckled in undulating lines of brown- 
 black. The wings are the same, the quills of a red- 
 dish umber-brown. The lowest parts of back and 
 rump are grounded in a sort of brown-grey colour, 
 handsomely watered with bars of black; the effect 
 at a distance giving a blackish-grey colour. The 
 upper tail feathers connect together at the centre; 
 they are well nigh black, shot with a brownish grey, 
 white-tipped : the tail itself black, and brokenly 
 marked with white about two inches from its point, 
 forming a broad and wavy line, or bar, across it. 
 
 D2 
 
42 CAPEECALZIE SHOOTING. 
 
 The belly is black, with white spots at the centre ; 
 the breast feathers of the glossiest bright green-black, 
 interwoven so closely and finely, as to present a 
 breastwork to the enemy, that would turn ordinary 
 shot from its well guarded surface. The side and 
 flank feathers are of a ground-colour, freckled with 
 black. The tarsi are plumed, the feathers of 
 brownish-grey hue, long behind, of loose texture like 
 the moor-fowls, twice the length of the hind-toes which 
 they hide. A fine sample of this beautiful bird 
 might measure from two feet ten inches to three feet, 
 at its full extent. The female is found greatly infe- 
 rior in size. Different specimens brought under our 
 notice have varied, however, in length. Jardine 
 speaks of one about three and twenty inches long, 
 which sat but seventeen inches high ; while a cock in 
 the same cargo would have sat upon his perch on a 
 branch of a tree full two feet above it. The female 
 is marked similarly to the grey hen, only its hues 
 are more distinct. It is of an ochreous brown, 
 broadly and clearly barred with black, while the ex- 
 tremities decline into paler tints. The breast is a 
 rich brownish orange colour, here and there freckled 
 over where the black bars intervene. The bill is of 
 a dirtier hue than in the male bird; a dark horn 
 colour, growing paler at the tip. The females, we 
 have ourselves seen, have all been smaller than the 
 specimen spoken of by Jardine* 
 
 In days of yore the ancient forests of Scotland, 
 and the sister kingdom, were abundantly supplied 
 
CAPERCALZIE SHOOTING. 43 
 
 with this magnificent bird, whose noble size and 
 beauty rendered it the favourite quarry of the sports- 
 man. Its extirpation in Ireland dates from an 
 early period. Smith alludes to this bird in his His- 
 tory of Ireland, completed in 1749, as extinct since 
 the demolition of the Irish woods. The last caper- 
 calzie, recorded as killed in Scotland, met his death 
 in the vicinity of Inverness, more than sixty years 
 back. Thus the destruction in the Highlands was 
 infinitely more gradual in its character. By the 
 exertions of many noblemen and gentlemen, princi- 
 cipally of North Britain, the capercalzie bids fair to 
 become once more the denizen and adornment of 
 our woods. Lord Fife made strenuous efforts to- 
 wards its naturalization. These were at first unsuc- 
 cessful. The earliest importation from Sweden took 
 place in 1828 ; but the male bird died. The follow- 
 ing year affairs were better managed. In 1838-9, 
 Lord Breadalbane made some attempts that were at 
 once successful, for from forty-nine couples that he 
 received, of which he turned out a portion, and kept 
 the remainder in confinement, seventy-nine young 
 birds, in 1839, were accounted to be hatched. Birds 
 have been reared in confinement at Mr. Fowell Bux- 
 ton's estate in Norfolk. The Duchess of Athol had 
 some of these birds, and some birds have been 
 hatched in the aviary at Knowsley. Mr. Colquhoun 
 mentions an interesting fact relative to these birds. 
 He says the young capercalzie thrive better under the 
 foster care of the grey hen, than if left to maternal 
 
44 CAPEECALZIE SHOOTING. 
 
 protection. When a capercalzie's eggs are dis- 
 covered, they are divided among several grey hens, 
 whose nests the keepers search out for this purpose. 
 The grey hens, however, will not sit upon them, 
 unless some of their own eggs are also left ; but when 
 the young are hatched they will pay equal regard to 
 both ; and it is not until the capercalzie are fully, 
 grown that they drive away their step-mothers, who 
 then dread them as much as hawks. We can ima- 
 gine how splendidly furnished once appeared the 
 primeval woods and moors of Ireland and Scotland, 
 when the capercalzie perched and roosted in num- 
 bers on the trees, enriching, with its gay investiture 
 of plumage, the solitary scenery with a beauty of its 
 own when the black cock and red grouse were as 
 plentiful as sparrows and ptarmigan and moor-fowl 
 hovered over lake, or surmounted pinnacles of rocks, 
 like the sylph spirits of the lorn localities. That 
 such shall ever be the case again can never be ex- 
 pected, nor should it be desired. The disappearance 
 of the large tribes of wild beasts and birds marks 
 ever the paths of civilisation ; and in bartering the 
 picturesque for the partially beneficial, the social con- 
 dition of mankind has infinitely the best of the 
 exchange. It is very rarely that the romance and 
 the reality of life are found living together on good 
 terms. 
 
 The food of the capercalzie consists principally 
 of the young shoots of fir (of which their flesh is said 
 to taste), and of the buds and berries of the forests 
 
CAPERCALZIE SHOOTING. 45 
 
 and brushwood they inhabit. The call of this bird is 
 similar to that of the black cock ; and its habits, in 
 almost every respect, strictly analagous. Jardine 
 
 says, it attracts the female by its call from some 
 
 i/ ' j 
 
 eminence or open spot; and, after the season of pair- 
 ing is past, it retires to undergo the process of 
 moulting, leaving the hen to perform the duties of 
 incubation, and to watch over her brood till the males 
 begin to change their plumage. Generic characters : 
 bill short, very strong, and hooked at base ; nostrils 
 vasal, lateral, and hidden by closely-set feathers; 
 naked skin above the eyes, enlarging in spring, and 
 brightening in hue ; wings short, concave, quills 
 elongated; tail ample and expanding, rounded at 
 base ; naked feet, edges of toes fringed ; tarsi, long 
 feathered. Types : Tetrao Urogallus obscurus. Eu- 
 rope, Northern Asia, North America. 
 
CHAPTER IV, 
 
 BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 
 
 THEEE is no bird of game so easily come at, early in 
 the season (August), as the black grouse, familiarly 
 known as the black cock ; nor one so difficult of 
 approach when the winter has set in. Black game 
 do not pair like the red grouse, so shooting the 
 hen and her young ones, before experience makes the 
 latter sage, is as easy as circumventing a flock of 
 turkeys. But getting a "crack" at an old cock, at 
 any period of the year, is another affair altogether. 
 He is found generally alone, sometimes with half a 
 score of other "old cocks," all on the qui vive. 
 Unlike the practice in reference to hen pheasants, as 
 we shall see presently, it is fashionable to destroy the 
 matrons of the black grouse family, for it is a pug. 
 nacious race. They cannot live with their red 
 brethren upon decent terms, any more than white 
 men can with their brothers of similar hue. The 
 difference, however, is, that while the bipes inplumis 
 rubicundus, or red man of the traveller, goes to the 
 wall, the feathered animal of two legs and plumage 
 
BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 47 
 
 of " rich rouge brown" of the naturalist, is carefully 
 fostered and "preserved." 
 
 That there is a difficulty in associating these 
 relations as indeed the case is with relatives gene- 
 rally we are assured by many trustworthy authorities. 
 Mr. Colquhoun observes "that many gentlemen are 
 now beginning to shoot the hens, observing the great 
 increase of black game, and decrease of grouse in 
 some districts. This," according to Mr. C. (as the 
 dreadful old women say, who mutilate proper names 
 under the most aggravated circumstances), " may be 
 in part attributed to the advance of cultivation," he is 
 speaking of Scotland; "but I cannot help thinking 
 the black game have a good share in driving off the 
 grouse, as I know of one instance where the latter 
 were killed off, and the former again returned to their 
 old haunts." In like manner, not to write it pro- 
 fanely, if the family of Yankee Doodle was " killed 
 off," there is little doubt that the red gentlemen 
 would return to their old haunts, and the Ojibbeway 
 be great in the Broadway. 
 
 The young sportsman our especial concern is 
 about to engage against black game (not the nigger of 
 the vulgar tongue, but the tetrao of ornithology), and 
 is, consequently, fain to learn how the campaign 
 should be entered upon : let him attend. Our son, 
 make thyself acquainted with the haunts of the 
 quarry. Having discovered these, rely upon it they 
 will be found hard by some clump of rushes on the 
 fair free moor. When you get a point near cover of 
 
48 BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 
 
 that description, and especially if your dogs "road," 
 be sure the tetrao is not afar off. The old hen is the 
 first to rise down with her. The juveniles will lie 
 like the eggs they were in before they were hatched ; 
 they are "the spooniest brutes in nature all to 
 sticks," not to except nothing. 
 
 This, as we have already premised, is in autumn ; 
 pass the morrow of All Souls and they change their 
 characters wholly. Then to walk them up to your 
 gun, and bring them down to it, is just the sort of 
 accomplishment not to be acquired. Then they feed 
 around the sheaves, in societies of two or three scores, 
 with sentinels ever on the alert. The best mode 
 .of out-generalling them is, before their feeding time 
 to ensconse yourself in a sheaf, near the spot they 
 resort, and there wait their coming. Or place your- 
 self behind the wall, with which the Highland field is 
 sure to be fenced, and by poking a stone out of it you 
 have a glorious embrasure. But this must be within 
 range of their feeding quarters, for they are so ex- 
 quisitely acute of hearing and sight, that a move, 
 however slight, betrays you. 
 
 Where there are but very few corn-fields (by no 
 means an unusual neighbourhood in the Scottish moor- 
 lands), the plantations on the sides of the hills may 
 be beaten with good prospect of black cocks. When 
 these plantings consist of birch and alder your chance 
 will be greatly improved. Place yourself above, and 
 send some one with a steady dog beneath them ; 
 keep in advance of these as they beat. Let the 
 
BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 49 
 
 beater keep outside, and beat the bushes, making 
 a great outcry. You will find a single beater of more 
 practical use than a dozen : in cover shooting of any 
 kind, unless where several guns are at work, more 
 mischief than good comes of a crowd of beaters. One 
 follower, and one old staunch dog, is all you want. 
 When you get a point, cause the bush to be well 
 struck at the side opposite to you. By adopting this 
 plan you will kill more game than those who put up 
 ten times as much 
 
 Like everything that flies the air, or walks the 
 earth, or swims the deep, or crawls the mud, black 
 game is obnoxious to the poacher's arts. Touching on 
 them, Mr. Colquhoun remarks, " I may put gentlemen 
 on their guard against two ways of poaching grouse and 
 black game, I believe not generally known : the first 
 is, hunting the young packs, before the moors are 
 open, with a very active terrier, or 'colley.' If the 
 dog understands the business, he will chop a great 
 many in a day. On a moor, in Eoxburgshire, I saw a 
 sheep dog, accompanied by a young farmer, perform- 
 ing to admiration. I had the curiosity to watch their 
 proceedings, until I saw the dog snap up a young 
 grouse, quick as thought. The other plan is, to set 
 traps on the peat stacks, or in the green springs 
 where the birds come to drink and to eat small 
 insects; this last maybe continued all the season." 
 Now, like St. Augustine's famous confessions, the pub- 
 lication of these choice recipes for poaching, seems 
 of very questionable policy. Peter Pindar's ostler 
 
50 BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 
 
 never heard of such a thing as greasing a horse's teeth, 
 to cause him leave his corn in the manger, until 
 the question was put by his confessor. Of all human 
 institutions, the system of game preserving in this 
 country, is that which is the most opposed to com- 
 mon sense, and the natural instinct of prudence. 
 Landed proprietors select their keepers ordinarily 
 from those men who have been the most notorious 
 poachers of their neighbourhoods ; yet they never go 
 to Newgate for their stewards how is this ? 
 
 BL.UK CHOUSE. 
 
 The Black Grouse, or Black Cock. This noble 
 bird inhabits both England and Scotland, although 
 sparingly spread over the former. It is found on the 
 
BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 51 
 
 borders of the two kingdoms, is plentiful farther 
 north, and abundant in those frequent haunts of its 
 favour the sub-alpine sheep countries. It is found 
 in most of the wild districts extending to Sutherland ; 
 also in the islands of Mull and Skye. The counties 
 of England in which it is known, are Hampshire in 
 the New Forest, Somersetshire, Dartmoor and Ex- 
 moor, in Devonshire, and the wilder portions of 
 Staffordshire and Lancashire. They are also be- 
 coming plentiful, it is said, in the forest of Dela- 
 mere, in Cheshire. 
 
 The upper part of the plumage of the adult bird 
 is of a rich steel blue ; of the lower parts pitch black ; 
 the wing coverts are also pitch black; with the 
 secondaries, the greater ones are fringed with white, 
 thus forming a stripe across the wings visible in flight; 
 the under tail coverts are white. After the moulting 
 process, there is a tinge of brown interspersed with 
 the full plumage, which again changes at the close of 
 winter. The peculiar feature in the construction of 
 the black grouse, is the singular form of its tail: 
 the feathers of which curve outwardly, and spread at 
 its fullest development into the shape of a lyre. 
 These plumes, thus elongated, would seem to signify 
 some peculiar sustenance of flight ; but the fact does 
 not prove so, for their ascent is neither of long dura- 
 tion, nor applicable to any known habit of the species. 
 We are told, that it holds analogy, in this forked tail 
 and silken plumage, to the Drongo Shrikes of Africa 
 and India. The female is smaller than the male, 
 
52 BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 
 
 although the form of its tail is much the same, save 
 that the curve scarcely exceeds half an inch in depth. 
 Its plumage is pale brownish-orange as the ground 
 colour ; yellow- white at the throat, breast, and belly ; 
 there is a shot of dark purple on the sides of the 
 neck. Bars, and undulations of black, cover the 
 plumage. The centres of the feathers on the wings 
 and shoulders are black, diverging to a fainter hue ; 
 and at the tips, similar to those of the partridge. 
 The bill of both male and female is black, or nearly 
 so. There is little variety of plumage in this species, 
 although Jardine speaks of a grey hen that he had, 
 shot by Sir Sidney Beckwith, whose entire colour was 
 a dull whitish grey, and whose cross markings were 
 of a darker shade. 
 
 The black grouse are partial to moist flats, and 
 meadows of rank and luxuriant herbage. They appear 
 to care little for heathy pastures, but choose, in pre- 
 ference, those glens and passes between high lands, 
 where grow the natural brushwood of the stunt birch 
 and hazel, the willow or the alder, and where fern is 
 both deep and thick. In such favoured spots they 
 are never at a loss for food; are protected from the 
 night-cold, and from the fervid rays of the midsum- 
 mer sun. Here, in flocks, they will resort to their 
 feeding grounds; young and old frequently joining 
 together amicably : and here they will sport or rest 
 during the day's heat on the hill side, and pick up 
 food morning and evening. The females are left in 
 charge of their young ; they build their nests on the 
 
BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 53 
 
 ground, near water, and the parents convey the 
 broods, when hatched, to the low, damp, rushy hol- 
 lows, where the tender seeds of the hill grasses and 
 rushes form their abundant nourishment. Sir Wil- 
 liam Jardine's account of the black cock is so graphic, 
 that we extract it for the amusement of our readers : 
 " This bird is polygamous. In the warmer, 
 sunny days, at the conclusion of winter, and com- 
 mencement of spring, the males, after feeding, may 
 be seen arranged on some turf-fence, rail, or sheep- 
 fold, pluming their wings, expanding their tails, and 
 practising, as it were, their love-call. If the weather 
 now continues warm, the flocks soon separate, and 
 the males select some conspicuous spots, from whence 
 they endeavour to drive all rivals, and commence to 
 display their arts to allure the females. The places 
 selected at such seasons are generally elevations : the 
 turf-enclosure of a former sheepfold, which has 
 been disused, and is now grown over; or some of 
 those beautiful spots of fresh and grassy pasture, 
 which are well known to the inhabitants of a pastoral 
 district. Here, after, perhaps, many battles have 
 been fought and rivals vanquished, the noble, full- 
 dressed black cock takes his stand, commencing at 
 the first dawn of day, and, where the game is abun- 
 dant, the hill on every side repeats the humming 
 call. They strut around the spots selected, trailing 
 their wings, inflating the throat and neck, and puffing 
 up the plumage of these parts and the now brilliant 
 wattle above the eyes, raising and expanding their 
 
 E 2 
 
54 
 
 BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 
 
 tails, and displaying the beautifully contrasting white 
 under tail-covers ; he is soon heard by the females, 
 who crowd around their lord and master. This 
 season of admiration does not continue long ; the 
 females, or grey hens, disperse, to seek proper 
 
 THE OREY HEN. 
 
 situations for depositing their eggs, while the males, 
 losing their feeling for love and fighting, re-assemble 
 in small parties, and seek the shelter of the brush 
 and fern beds to complete a new moult; and are 
 seldom seen, except early in the morning or at even- 
 ing, when they exhibit a degree of timidity the very 
 reverse of their former boldness and vigilance." 
 
 The young may be deemed full grown early in 
 September : but, even then, in districts that have 
 
BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 55 
 
 never been disturbed, they will often suffer them- 
 selves to be mouthed by pointers without rising. 
 We have spoken of their summer food, as the berries 
 of Alpine plants and the seeds of rank grasses. In 
 winter, they eat the young fir- shoots, the catkins of 
 the hazel and the birch, and fern leaves, which so 
 frequently disagreeably taint their flesh. Where, 
 however, the bird frequents the low grounds, they 
 resort to the rape and turnip-fields, and feed during 
 frosty weather most gratefully upon the leaves. They 
 also resort to the stubble, and glean from it, by 
 hundreds, with great industry, a plentiful repast. 
 They are sometimes approached while flocking for 
 this purpose, by means of the fences, and shot at, 
 although at this season they are most shy and wary. 
 
 This bird has been long extinct in Ireland, al- 
 though Smith, in his " History of Cork," mentions 
 it as met with in that locality (1749). It is 
 found in most European countries : France, Ger- 
 many, and even in Italy ; in Russia, Siberia, Scan- 
 dinavia, Norway, Lapland. It is the Tetrao tetrix 
 of authors ; black grouse or cock, grey hen, of British 
 authors : Lyrurus tetrix of Swainson, so named from 
 the form of its tail. 
 
 As a conclusion to these notices of the grouse 
 family, the following extract from the letter of an 
 American sportsman will not be out of place : 
 
 " There is not one wild bird or beast in America, 
 unless it be a few ducks, precisely similar to its 
 European congeners. The woodcock is a distinct 
 
56 BLACK COCK SHOOTING. 
 
 variety (Scolopax minor), rarely exceeding eight, and 
 never eleven, ounces ; he is red-breasted, and is in 
 the northern states a summer bird of passage ; com- 
 ing early in the spring, sometimes before the snow is 
 off the ground ; laying, rearing its young, and going 
 off, when the winter sets in, to the rice-fields and 
 warm wet swamps of Georgia and the Carolinas. 
 The bird called in the eastern states the partridge, 
 and everywhere southward and westward of New 
 Jersey, the pheasant, is in reality a grouse the 
 ruffed or tipped grouse (Tetrao umbellus) a feather- 
 legged, pine-hunting, mountain-loving bird, found in 
 every state, I believe, of the Union, in the Canadas, 
 and even up to Labrador. There are many other 
 grouse in North America, of which none are found 
 in the States, except the great abundance in Long 
 Island, New Jersey ; and the pinnated grouse, or 
 prairie-fowl, formerly found in north-eastern parts of 
 Pennsylvania, though on Long Island it is now quite 
 extinct, and nearly so in Pennsylvania and New 
 Jersey. They are still killed on Martha's Vineyard, 
 a little island off the coast of Massachusetts, where 
 they are now very vigorously preserved ; and in 
 Ohio, Illinois, and all the western states, they lite- 
 rally swarm on the prairies. The spruce grouse, a 
 small and very rare kind, is found in Maine occasion- 
 ally, and in a portion of New York, between the 
 head-waters of the Hudson and Canada frontier. 
 Four or five other species are found in Labrador 
 and on the Rocky Mountains ; but none of these, 
 
SHOOTING SETTEES. 57 
 
 though well known to the ornithologist, can be in- 
 cluded in the sportsman's list of game. The par- 
 tridge of Virginia is the quail of New York, commonly 
 known as the Perdix Virginiana, though of late there 
 has heen a stiff controversy as to his name and genus. 
 It is proved, I believe, beyond cavil, that he is not 
 exactly a quail, nor a partridge either, but a sort of 
 half-way link between them : the modern naturalists 
 call him an ortyx, a very silly name, by the way, since 
 it is only the Greek for quail, to which he is, in truth, 
 the more nearly connected. His habits are far more 
 like those of the quail than of the partridge, and he 
 should be called quail in the vernacular." 
 
 SETTERS. 
 
 HAVING now disposed of that which, by a slight licence, 
 may be termed the poetry of shooting, before entering 
 upon its more household stuff, allusion comes in aptly 
 to its intellectual agents. Although, as a principle, 
 we have recommended the use of the pointer, in 
 especial to the young disciple of the trigger, the first 
 place among shooting dogs must be awarded to the 
 Setter. In style and dash of ranging; in courage 
 and capacity of covering ground; in beauty of form 
 
58 SHOOTING SETTERS. 
 
 and grace of attitude ; in variety of colour and elegance 
 of clothing ; no animal of his species will at all bear 
 comparison with him. As the respective merits of 
 the pointer and the setter, however, have long heen a 
 mooted question among sportsmen, we have much 
 pleasure in laying before the reader the opinion on 
 this subject of one of the most experienced authorities 
 in England. We speak of Mr. Lang, the well-known 
 gunmaker of the Haymarket, to whom we are indebted 
 for the subjoined letter on that interesting inquiry : 
 " Having had considerable experience in breeding 
 from some of the first kennels in England, Ireland, 
 and Scotland amongst them those of the late Duke 
 of Gordon, Captain Ross, Mr. OsbaMeston, and other 
 celebrated sportsmen; and having also spent many 
 years, and much money, in the endeavour to produce 
 a superior description of pointers and setters; an 
 account of my progress may be useful. I begin with 
 my opinions concerning pointers, by stating, where I 
 consider them superior, and where inferior, to setters. 
 Pointers are better for partridge shooting, as they are 
 milder in disposition, more tractable, and closer 
 rangers ; the latter a property of all others the most 
 desirable, if you want to kill birds after the first fort- 
 night in the season. They want also less water than 
 setters, who often suffer much in hot weather in 
 districts where it is not to be found. True, pointers 
 require more walking to, to beat their ground properly ; 
 but I am persuaded, that if, instead of racing through 
 the middle of a field as though they were walking for 
 
SHOOTING SETTERS . 5 9 
 
 a wager, and thus giving their dogs no earthly chance, 
 young sportsmen were to go slower than they generally 
 do, they would do more justice to themselves, their 
 dogs, and their preserves. Few pointers can stand 
 work on the moors (w r here the cream of all shooting is 
 to be had) unless they have been bred, or have been 
 regularly worked on them. I know many gentlemen 
 who greatly prefer them, when so bred, to setters ; 
 but Scotch pointers are not so highly bred as south- 
 country dogs, and therefore more calculated for rough 
 work. Many are crossed with the foxhound, which 
 gives them speed and courage as well as hardness of 
 foot; but the produce of the first cross is generally 
 too high-mettled to be managed with ease, being 
 difficult to break from running hares, or to down 
 charge ; and, for the most part, very hard-mouthed. 
 You may reckon on six days out of every twelve being 
 rainy in the Highlands ; the wet, and injuries from 
 burnt heather, &c., cause the pointer soon to become 
 foot-sore, particularly between the toes, as he has no 
 hair to protect his feet like the setter. High-bred 
 pointers are also delicate in their appetites, and will 
 not eat the Scotch meal at first. Gentlemen should 
 have plenty of greaves sent to their shooting quarters 
 to mix with it, as meat can seldom be had in the 
 remote grouse countries. They should give orders 
 that their dogs should be fed immediately on their 
 return from the hills, and their feet carefully washed 
 with salt and water : indeed, if gentlemen saw to 
 those things themselves, they would find their account 
 
60 SHOOTING SETTERS. 
 
 in it, observing that such dogs as would not feed well 
 were never taken out the following day. ' A stitch in 
 time saves nine,' is a good wholesome maxim. 
 
 " I now proceed to speak of the setter. The Irish 
 setters are very beautiful both in and out of the field ; 
 but so hot-headed, that, unless always at work, and 
 kept under very strict discipline, they constantly spoil 
 sport for the first hour, frequently the best in the 
 whole day. I have shot to many, and found them all 
 pretty much alike. I had one, the history of whose 
 bad and good qualities would fill half a dozen pages. 
 As long as I kept him to regular hard work, a better 
 never entered a field : I refused forty guineas for 
 him, and shot him a month afterwards for his bad 
 deeds. I bred from him, out of an English setter 
 bitch, and some of the produce turned out very good ; 
 one of them I shot to myself for eight seasons ; my 
 reasons for parting with him I will presently explain. 
 Unless to throw more dash into my kennel, I should 
 never be tempted again to become master of an Irish 
 setter. Frequently, partridges are driven into gorse 
 or low cover, in the middle of the day, which few 
 pointers will face. I know it is not the fashion to 
 shoot to dogs in cover; but most true sportsmen 
 prefer shooting five brace of pheasants to setters or 
 mute spaniels, to fifty brace to beaters. In the latter 
 case you stand sometimes an hour together without 
 getting a shot ; and then they rise a dozen at a time, 
 like barn-door fowls, and as many are killed in a few 
 hours as would serve for weeks of fair shooting. 
 

 THE SETTER. 
 
 " In the season of 1839 I was asked for a week's 
 shooting into Somersetshire, by an old friend, whose 
 science in everything connected with sporting is first- 
 
6 '2 SHOOTING SETTEES. 
 
 rate. Then, for the first time for many years, I had 
 my dogs, English setters, beaten hollow. His breed 
 was from pure Kussian setters, crossed by an English 
 setter dog, which some years ago made a sensation 
 in the sporting world, from his extraordinary per- 
 formances ; he belonged to the late Joseph Manton, 
 and had been sold for a hundred guineas. Although 
 I could not but remark the excellence of my friend's 
 dogs, yet it struck me, as I had shot over my own 
 old favourite setter (who had himself beat many 
 good ones, and had never before been beaten) for 
 eight years, that his nose could not have been right, 
 for the Russians got three points to his one. I 
 therefore resolved to try some others against them 
 the next season ; and having heard a gentleman, well 
 known as an excellent judge, speak of a brace of ex- 
 traordinary dogs he had seen in the neighbourhood of 
 his Yorkshire moors, with his recommendation I pur- 
 chased them. I shot to them in August 1840, and 
 their beauty and style of performance were spoken of 
 in terms of praise by a correspondent to a sporting 
 paper. In September I took them into Somerset- 
 shire, fully anticipating that I should give the Rus- 
 sians the go-by; but I was again disappointed. I 
 found, from the wide ranging of my dogs, and the 
 noise consequent upon their going so fast through 
 stubbles and turnips (particularly in the middle of the 
 day, when the sun was powerful, and there was but 
 little scent), that they constantly put up their birds out 
 of distance ; or, if they did get a point, that the game 
 
SHOOTING SETTERS. 63 
 
 would rarely lie till we could get to it. The Russians, 
 on the contrary, being much closer rangers, quarter- 
 ing their ground steadily heads and tails up and 
 possessing perfection of nose, in extreme heat, wet, 
 or cold, enabled us to bag double the head of game 
 that mine did. Nor did they lose one solitary 
 wounded bird ; whereas, with my own dogs, I lost 
 six brace the first two days' partridge shooting, most 
 of them in standing corn. 
 
 "My old friend and patron, having met with a 
 severe accident while hunting, determined to go to 
 Scotland for the next three years. Seeing that my 
 dogs were well calculated for grouse shooting, as 
 they had been broken and shot to on the moors, and 
 being aware of my anxiety to possess the breed of 
 his Russians, he very kindly offered to exchange 
 them for mine, with a promise I would preserve a 
 brace of Russian puppies for him. Although I had 
 refused fifty guineas for my brace, I most gladly 
 closed with his offer. Since then I have hunted 
 them in company with several dogs of high character, 
 but nothing that I have yet seen could equal them. 
 If not taken out for six months, they are perfectly 
 steady, which is a quality rarely to be met with. 
 Every sportsman must know, that the fewer dogs he 
 can do his work with properly, the better ; for if they 
 are in condition, they cannot be too frequently 
 hunted; and their tempers, style of working, &c., be- 
 come more familiar to him. On this the whole com- 
 fort of shooting depends. Upon these grounds I 
 
64 SHOOTING SETTEES. 
 
 contend that, for all kinds of shooting therefore 
 there is nothing equal to the Russian, or half-bred 
 Russian setter, in nose, sagacity, and every other 
 qualification that a dog ought to possess. It may 
 appear an exaggeration, but it is my opinion, in 
 which I am supported by many of the first sportsmen 
 in England, that there is not one keeper in fifty that 
 knows how to manage and break a dog efficiently. 
 It is a common practice for keepers to take their 
 dogs out for an hour or two, twice or thrice a week, 
 morning or evening, just before the commencement 
 of the season what would be thought of training 
 a horse in that way, for a race over the flat, or 
 a steeple-chase? Hard and constant work is as 
 necessary for a dog, that has to hunt from morning 
 to night, and frequently for several successive days, 
 as for a race-horse. He should be taken out two or 
 three hours daily, in the middle of the day, to use 
 him to the heat, for three or four weeks before the 
 season begins ; and let me observe, in conclusion, 
 that if his master were to adopt a similar course, 
 he would have good cause to rejoice in the precau- 
 tion before the end of his first week's shooting." 
 
 Another gentleman, a large breeder of sporting 
 dogs, thus answered our queries as to the kind of 
 animal best suited to the general purpose of 
 shooting : 
 
 " I have tried all sorts, and, at last, fixed upon 
 a well-bred setter as the most useful. I say well- 
 bred, for not many of the dogs with feathered sterns, 
 
SHOOTING SETTEES. 65 
 
 which one sees now-a-days, are worthy the name of 
 setter. Pointer fanciers object to setters on account 
 of their requiring more water : but there are gene- 
 rally sufficient springs and peat-holes on the moors 
 for them ; and, even in the early part of September, a 
 horse-pond or ditch is to be met with often enough. 
 For cover or snipe shooting the setter is far superior, 
 facing the thorns in the cover, and the wet in the 
 bogs, without coming to heel shivering, like a pig in 
 the ague. I have always found, too, that setters, 
 when well broke, are finer tempered, and not so 
 easily cowed as pointers. Should they get an un- 
 lucky, undeserved kick, Don, the setter, wags his tail, 
 and forgets it much sooner than Carlo, the pointer. 
 My shooting lying near the moors, takes in every 
 description of country, and I always find that, after a 
 good rough day, the setter will out-tire the pointer, 
 though, perhaps, not start quite so flash in the 
 morning. 
 
 " I always teach one, at least, of my dogs to bring 
 his game, which saves a world of trouble, both in and 
 out of cover, but never allow him to stir for the 
 bird until after loading. Should any of these remarks 
 prove of service, I shall feel most happy in having 
 assisted a brother sportsman." 
 
 A few words on the management of shooting dogs 
 in kennel. The building should be divided into com- 
 partments, having each a court, and communicating 
 with each other. A brick, or rather tile, pavement is 
 the best for the floors, as it is easier washed, and dries 
 
 F 2 
 
66 -SHOOTING SETTERS. 
 
 sooner than the common brick. The court should be 
 gravelled, and each water-trough never without a piece 
 of sulphur in it. Twice or thrice give the dogs fresh 
 straw for their beds. Put salt into their " sop," as it 
 will prevent your dogs being plagued with worms. 
 Remember the specific for condition in any animal is, 
 " plenty of good food, and plenty of exercise." Draft 
 your dogs to their meals, as it teaches a well im- 
 pressed lesson of obedience. In summer wash them 
 frequently with soft soap the avenging angel of 
 vermin ; also, if possible, give them a swim every 
 day in hot weather. Of all things take care ticks do 
 not get a footing in your kennel ; if they do, it 's long 
 odds you never get rid of them. Probably the only 
 radical cure, in such a case, is, to pull it down. After 
 hunting in wood or cover, examine them, and let every 
 tick be carefully picked off; this is an absolutely 
 necessary precaution. When they are numerous, or 
 very small, rubbing a dog well with sweet oil will kill 
 them. Dogs should be well wiped, and thoroughly 
 cleansed with a brush and rubber after hunting, in 
 the manner horses are. This will keep them in a 
 very different condition from those, that are suffered 
 to lie down with the mud on their bodies, to cake 
 and harden. 
 
CHAPTEB V, 
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 Loiterer rise ! the morn hath kept 
 For thee her orient pearls unwept ; 
 Haste, and take them, while the light 
 Hangs on the dew-locks of the night. 
 See ! Aurora throws her fair 
 Fresh-tinted colours through the air. 
 Come forth ! come forth ! 'tis very sin 
 Arid profanation to keep in ! 
 There's joy and gladness in the skies ; 
 Loiterer ! from thy couch arise ! 
 
 Our life is short, our moments run 
 Swift as the coursers of the sun ; 
 And, like the vapour or the rain, 
 Once lost, can ne'er be traced again ! 
 Each flow'r hath wept and eastward bow'd ; 
 The skylark, far above the cloud, 
 To hymn his song of praise, is fled ; 
 And all the birds their matins said : 
 There's joy and gladness in the skies ; 
 Loiterer ! from thy couch arise ! 
 
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 Haste, 'ere the sun hath drunk the dews, 
 Boon Nature to her banquet woos ; 
 Around, the smiling fields no more 
 Are waving with their golden store ; 
 Homeward bears the loaded wain, 
 The golden glories of the plain ; 
 And nut-brown partridges are seen 
 Gliding among the stubble screen : 
 There 's joy and gladness in the skies ; 
 Loiterer ! from thy couch arise ! 
 
 NEXT, in seasonable succession to moor-fowl shooting, 
 comes the chase of the Partridge for once to borrow 
 a sporting term from our friends beyond the Straits 
 of Dover. Like the red grouse, partridges may be 
 be called an exclusively national species of game. 
 We call them " birds," as taking precedence of the 
 whole feathered family ; and if flavour be any indica- 
 tion of quality (we did not say condition, as it might 
 have come within the possibility of a pun), they are 
 entitled to this pre-eminence. As we shall show 
 presently, there are two kinds of partridges : the 
 grey, our indigenous, if not exclusive sort ; and the 
 red-legged, a foreigner, of recent introduction (and, 
 like other foreigners, if we had never seen him it 
 would have been no great loss). 
 
 According to act of parliament, you are entitled 
 to shoot them from the 1st of September to the 
 1st of February ; but (especially on your own manors) 
 if you begin on the 2 Oth and finish on Old Twelfth 
 Day, you will find your reward, both in better sport 
 and a better stock. The amateur of the trigger and 
 
PABTKIDGE SHOOTING. 69 
 
 a good crop of game, would do well to remember the 
 old catch 
 
 " 'T was on the morn of Valentine 
 The birds began to mate." 
 
 If you feel satisfied your ground will not be 
 beaten before you reach it, nine o'clock is quite soon 
 enough to take the field in September. At that hour 
 the coveys, which are not in the standing corn, will be 
 met with in the stubbles, the cover of old high grass, in 
 the fallows and potato fields ; as yet, they do not fre- 
 quent turnips. When you have put up a covey, you 
 may make sure it will settle in the standing corn. 
 To turn your sport to the best account, have markers 
 so placed as to ascertain where they alight. When 
 disturbed they are not likely, at this early period of 
 the season, to fly far ; but if shot at they will drop, 
 often close to you, and lie as if they were dead, from 
 the effect of terror. Birds which thus drop and 
 cower, are very difficult to find, with the best nosed 
 dogs ; your markers here will do you good service. 
 
 If not supplied with markers, after having flushed 
 your birds, beat for them as closely as if you were 
 looking for a needle in a barrel of hay. Indeed, it 
 ought to be the shooter's axiom, that a bird which he 
 has seen is worth a score that he hopes to see. Be- 
 sides, nothing tends to make dogs more industrious 
 and confiding the latter a great point than mak- 
 ing them work on a spot where you are certain they 
 will find, and where they do find. In such cases, 
 too, the odds are, you kill your bird or birds, and your 
 
70 PAKTKIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 four-footed friend looks in your face, as who shall say, 
 1 'All's well that ends well." 
 
 Towards noon you will miss the partridge from 
 his ordinary haunt, and meet with him beside some 
 patch of water ; and having drank, he will repair to 
 some bank or potato ridge, for the purpose of sunning 
 himself. At this hour betake yourself and your dogs 
 to some place of shade and repose ; for the heat is 
 too oppressive peradventure for biped or quadruped, 
 and the scenting is sure to be bad. About three, the 
 birds will again begin to run, and if a breeze, too, 
 should put itself in motion, look for sport ; afternoon 
 shooting is ten per cent, better than morning. If the 
 range you beat in the morning held a good head of 
 birds, go back to it; partridges, unless very fre- 
 quently disturbed, are found more generally near 
 home than elsewhere. 
 
 As general rules, the young partridge shooter 
 may adopt worse than the following : During the 
 entire season he will find wheat-stubbles and turnips 
 the best spots for holding partridges. Moreover, at 
 all times of the year, they lie more on the fallows 
 than is supposed. Therefore if turnips and stubbles 
 fail, try the fallows ; the lands which are nearest the 
 hedgerows in particular. Late in the season, the 
 fallows are the first places to which the partridge 
 shooter should direct his steps. If the weather be 
 fine and open, he is sure to find his game there. It 
 will lie very close, and most probably afford some 
 choice double shots. Also he should now beat furze- 
 
PAETKIDGE SHOOTING. 71 
 
 covers, the fern of heaths and warrens, and cole-seed 
 patches, and the long white grass of young planta- 
 tions. This latter is very attractive, from the seeds 
 and insects with which it abounds. In storms and 
 fogs partridges lie very close, and in fine days which 
 follow storms. Heavy rains cause them to lie ex- 
 tremely close in turnips ; and, therefore, as well as 
 for many other reasons, it is not favourable for sport. 
 So much for the prose details of our sport : we will 
 sum up with a touch of the poetical, from the pen of 
 Colonel Hawker, the Magnus Apollo of young sports- 
 men: " If birds are wild, a sportsman who goes out 
 with his man, and has no other attendant, will bring 
 in more game, if he contrives to mount that man, or 
 rather a light boy, behind him ; because the moment 
 the dog stands, he can then dismount (by throwing 
 the right leg over the horse's neck), and leave the 
 man in full possession, of the Rosinante, instead of 
 being encumbered with a led horse, which frequently 
 precludes the possibility of his gallopping on to mark 
 a covey, or follow up a towering bird. Moreover, it 
 requires no conjuror to discover that two horses make 
 more noise than one ; and all noise, after the first few 
 weeks, is the ruin of sport. The gentleman with his 
 stud, would say ' Why not have three horses ? ' 
 This, I admit, is a more dignified way of taking the 
 field, than the subaltern turn-out of the Johnny Trot 
 behind ; but then we have the clatter of three horses, 
 with the clatter of two servants' tongues, an increase 
 of noise that would set the birds on the run ; and it 
 
72 PAETEIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 would be as vain to attempt the suppression of the 
 one as the other. In short, I would back the double- 
 mounted gent against the great squire and his stud. 
 Two on a horse, and the cad to be helmsman, is an 
 excellent way of giving the shooter the liberty of his 
 hands, the moment the covey springs unexpected. 
 Recollect, too, in wood about five feet high, a mounted 
 man can shoot, where one on his legs cannot see ; 
 and again, if a hare runs straight away, she may be 
 killed ten yards further, if you are well above her, 
 and catch her head and pole clear of her high rump. 
 All these little et cetera are what may be called the 
 finish ; as to ordinary sporting, in the present day, we 
 may as well tell a man how to eat his dinner." The 
 colonel treats the position of his young scholars with 
 somewhat of a high hand. 
 
 The common Partridge, of British authors, is 
 abundant in Europe; and plentiful in almost all 
 parts of our own island. It is one of the game 
 birds that delights in the cultivation that follows the 
 steps of man. The cunning of this bird can only 
 be equalled by its laziness. Finding a plentiful 
 harvest in the grain of the labourer, it will often 
 make its nest in the young corn and grasses, and 
 by this means perish ; for before the young brood is 
 hatched, the harvest has sometimes commenced. The 
 partridge pairs very early in spring, although the 
 young are frequently not more than half grown by 
 the beginning 'of September. Their nests are selected 
 variously. The wildest birds have been known to 
 
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 73 
 
 make them close to a highway, and within a foot of 
 a field path ; while some have chosen for concealment 
 the cavities of old oaks. However, their prevalent 
 
 mode of nidification is thus : The first genial days of 
 a fine February, they have paired and selected their 
 summer abode, long before there is any need for 
 preparation for the season of incubation. They seek 
 out a ready-made cavity, which they scoop out into a 
 deeper and more symmetrical hollow ; and, without 
 furnishing the nest, but contenting themselves with 
 the bare ground, they deposit from twelve to twenty 
 eggs. It is sometimes made in a furrow, always 
 under cover of tufts of grass. 
 
 This bird has few means of defence ; but that in- 
 stinct, which leads her to singular stratagems, is very 
 
74 FAKTKIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 remarkable. Let an intruder stumble on a partridge's 
 nest, and he shall find, in the midst of a sort of 
 scrambling uproar the cries of the parents, and the 
 bustle of the brood that the mother bird will hop 
 limping away, as though her wings were broken, or 
 as though, maimed and wounded, she threw herself 
 on the mercy of the enemy. Both parents are as- 
 siduous in the nurture of the young. We find in 
 Selby's first volume of " Illustrations of British Or- 
 nithology," an instance of the vigorous defence this 
 usually timid bird will make when pushed to ex- 
 tremity, and actuated by the parental instinct : 
 "A person engaged in a field not far from my resi- 
 dence, had his attention arrested by some objects on 
 the ground, which, upon approaching, he found to be 
 two partridges, a male and female, engaged in battle 
 with a carrion crow : so successful and so absorbed 
 were they in the issue of the contest, that they 
 actually held the crow till it was seized and taken 
 from them by the spectator of the scene. Upon 
 search, the young birds, lately hatched, were found 
 concealed amongst the grass. It would appear, there- 
 fore, that the crow, a mortal enemy to all kinds of 
 young game, in attempting to carry off one of these, 
 had been attacked by the parent birds, and with the 
 above singular success." In similar instances, of the 
 heroism of instinct, may be traced the affinity of all 
 animal classes in the world's space. Even as the 
 human parent will overcome the instinct of self- 
 preservation by the heart's impulse, or the body's 
 
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 75 
 
 courage, so will the bird, the dog, the elephant, at 
 times, rise above instinct into heroism. 
 
 The plumage of the partridge is too well known 
 to need specification beyond the statement, that at 
 breeding seasons its colours become deeper; that, in 
 the male at that period, the skin above the eyes be- 
 comes of a pinkish red colour ; while, in the female, 
 the feather-tips are then more distinctly marked with 
 pale yellow grey. Its plumage is subject to greater 
 variation than almost any bird in the list of the 
 Rasores ; cream-coloured markings and pure white 
 spots often occurring, and umber-brown and pure 
 black blotches being observed in different specimens 
 of this game. It is not found in the moorish dis- 
 tricts of Scotland. Generic characters : bill short, 
 rather strong, bending from the base ; nostrils lateral, 
 uncovered by feathers, but protected by an arched 
 naked scale; wings short, rounded, fourth and fifth 
 quills longest; tarsi and feet naked; anterior toes 
 united at the base by a membrane. Types : Perdix 
 cinerea, picta, <&c. ; Europe, Asia. 
 
 Note. Frequent lower countries, and are partial 
 to cultivation. Not arboreal, gregarious only to the 
 amount of their broods. 
 
 It is said that a " preponderance in the number 
 of cock birds occurs in the breedings of each season;" 
 in consequence of which the hen partridge is so 
 tormented by a number of males, " that she drops 
 one in one place and one in another, until there re- 
 mains for her but one cock and no nest! " The best 
 
76 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 mode we are told to destroy the superabundance of 
 cocks is, during the first weeks of the season, to net 
 the covey, and destroy all the old cocks, leaving only as 
 many young ones as hens, or even one less ; for it is 
 certainly better that the hen should look for the cock 
 (which she undoubtedly will find), than a number of 
 cocks for a hen. It should be recollected that, where 
 old birds are left, they will, at the pairing season, 
 drive off the youngsters, and prevent their breeding ; 
 for let any sportsman declare if ever, on finding a 
 single brace of partridges in the shooting season that 
 have not bred, and are termed by the sportsman a 
 gelt pair, he has found a covey near the same place 
 where he found them; which can only be accounted 
 for by the old birds driving the young ones from the 
 breeding grounds. Indeed, if some of the cocks are 
 not killed every year, the chances will be, the district 
 will in time become destitute of game. 
 
 When the eggs are hatched, the young birds can 
 run at once ; and so immediate is this, that they have 
 been seen with parts of the shell still sticking to 
 them. When partridges' eggs are introduced under 
 the common hen, she will hatch them, and rear them 
 indiscriminately with her own. The favourite and 
 one of the most necessary sorts of food of the young 
 partridge, is ants' eggs ; these must be procured for 
 birds hatched under foster care. The male and 
 female bird have a different call : the cock has a 
 sharp and strong call; the hen partridge a low and 
 softer one. The jucking noise peculiar to their 
 
PAKTEIDGE SHOOTING. 77 
 
 settling themselves to roost, is the most important 
 one to the sportsman. The male hird is the chief 
 officer, both in the nidification and rearing of the 
 young until they can faintly fly, when he loses all 
 the parental solicitude for which hoth male and 
 female partridge are so remarkable; hut the hen 
 still watches over them, conducts them to their 
 scratching grounds, searches their food for them, 
 and gathers them, at the least alarm, together ; and 
 this continues until they are within a third as big as 
 herself. Every sportsman knows the cry of distress 
 given by this bird when flushed ; and, perhaps, one 
 of the most interesting scenes, in the world of the 
 game fields, occurs, when both parents sittings-covering 
 the chickens with their wings, are surprised. Off 
 flies the male, and into the very teeth of the enemy, 
 perhaps in order to blind him as to the situation of 
 the nest ; next the female rises, hovering low, in 
 another direction : and the danger past, they will re- 
 turn, silently and by secret ways, to their beloved 
 charge. Although the partridge may seem indif- 
 ferent to its own preservation, by roosting upon the 
 ground, where it might be exposed to the dangers of 
 ferrets, stoats, wild cats, &c. ; yet it may be seen, that 
 it chooses its ground always in the midst of culti- 
 vation, and never trusts itself to coverts, hedges, 
 and coppices, save in the day time. 
 
 The Red-Legged, or French, Partridge (Perdix 
 rufa). A beautiful bird, which, notwithstanding its 
 name, prefers Southern Europe, Spain, and Portugal, 
 
 G2 
 
78 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 to France. In Normandy and Picardy they are so 
 little known, that the grey partridge is in infinitely 
 greater abundance. But preferring in all cases a 
 
 warm dry soil, these birds flock pretty plentifully in 
 the sunny vine provinces of France. They are said to 
 like mountainous situations, covered with wood ; and, 
 also, that the partridge spoken of in the Chronicles, 
 " The king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as one 
 would hunt a partridge on the mountains," was the 
 red-legged one. Their mode of perching on trees, 
 which the grey partridge never does, and their ap- 
 pearance in packs, constitute differences from the 
 latter. This rich-plumaged bird was introduced into 
 England as early as the reign of Charles the Second. 
 English landowners, during the last century, have 
 
PAETEIDGE SHOOTING. 70 
 
 also imported many thousands of their eggs, and 
 have bred them, and turned them out on their 
 manors. It is said that there are abundance of these 
 red birds on Lord Hertford's estate, in Suffolk. 
 They have lately been killed in the southem and 
 south-eastern counties. Their flesh is white, and 
 can never be esteemed as good eating as the common 
 bird ; but they prove an adorning variety, and pleasant 
 addition of plumage, in the parks of the game-pre- 
 servers. They are in plenty in the isles of Jersey 
 and Guernsey ; and it is supposed, that some birds 
 have made a flight, and alighted on our coasts from 
 these islands. They do not appear ever to have been 
 naturalized in Scotland or Ireland. They are used 
 in Cyprus as game-cocks, here and elsewhere, for the 
 amiable purpose of butchering each other. It swarms 
 in the island of Nansis to such a degree, as to be 
 a great nuisance to the people of the place, who are 
 compelled to collect the eggs for destruction, in 
 order to obtain a chance of saving their harvests 
 from the little creature's rapacity. Imagine a coun- 
 try where a man leads thousands of partridges about 
 like sheep ; not, certainly, on the ground, but hover- 
 ing over his head, and alighting around him to 
 repose ! Yet such is the account given of the par- 
 tridge-land round Trebizond. In Provence, this col- 
 lecting together partridge-flocks, takes place in a 
 smaller degree. " A certain Sussex man," relates 
 Willoughby, " had, by his industry, made a covey of 
 partridges so tame, that he drove them before him, 
 
80 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 upon a wager, out of that county to London, though 
 they were absolutely free, and had their wings 
 grown." It may be remembered how Lord Orford, 
 in 1790, made a bet with the eccentric Marquis of 
 Queensbury, that a drove of geese would beat an 
 equal number of turkeys in a race from Norwich to 
 London. The geese kept steadily jogging on, but 
 the turkeys flew up to roost in the trees adjoining 
 the high-road, and the drivers lost time in dis- 
 lodging them ; thus the geese beat the turkeys 
 hollow. Mr Daniel gives this faithful description 
 of the bird's plumage : " It is larger than the grey 
 partridge, and the bill and irides are red ; the fore- 
 head is grey brown ; the hind head is rufous brown ; 
 the chin and throat white, encircled with black ; 
 added to which, is a band of white over each eye 
 to the hind head : the fore part and sides of the 
 neck are cinereous, with two spots of black on each 
 feather ; the hind part of the neck rufous brown ; 
 the back, wings and rump, greyish brown : the breast 
 pale ash colour ; belly, sides, thighs, and vent rufous ; 
 the sides marked with lunular streaks of colour, 
 white, black, and orange ; quills grey brown, with 
 the outer edges yellowish ; the tail composed of six- 
 teen feathers : the four middle ones grey brown, the 
 next on each side the same, but rufous on the out- 
 side, the five outer ones rufous on both sides ; the 
 legs are red, and the male only has the blunt knob, 
 or spur, behind them." 
 
CHAPTER VI, 
 
 PHEASANT SHOOTING. 
 
 " What can people know about sporting that never go a hunting 
 above once a year, and then only on Easter Monday in a hackney- 
 coach?" SIR OLIVER BALLWINKLE. 
 
 " Heeds not the jay the insect's painted wings, 
 Nor hears the hawk when Philomela sings." POPE. 
 
 IT is a fact, that more than one writer, upon the 
 science and mystery of sporting, speaks of the cruelty 
 of killing the pheasant, because of the beauty of its 
 plumage. This is carrying consideration for outward 
 appearance, beyond most modern instances. For our 
 poor part, we hold such philosophy worthy only those 
 gentry who "go a hunting on Easter Monday in a 
 hackney-coach." To the youthful shooter we say, ac- 
 count fine feathers as little as doth the hawk; indeed, 
 we go further, and counsel him, should the chance 
 offer, rather to enrich his game-bag with some espe- 
 cial dandy of the pheasant tribe, some beau in gold 
 or silver plum'd brocade, than the mere bird of scarlet 
 
82 PHEASANT SHOOTING. 
 
 and purple, that, in and out of season, form the fes- 
 toons of every poultry butcher's show-window. 
 
 Pheasant- shooting commences on the 1st of Oc- 
 tober. It is rarely, however, that the season is so 
 forward as to give us, so early, nides sufficiently ad* 
 vanced towards trigger maturity. Indeed, the sport 
 may be postponed with great convenience ; as no 
 cover-shooting is pleasant, or very profitable, till the 
 trees are at least partly stripped of their foliage. 
 In beating covers for pheasants, if you use dogs at 
 all, employ low-backed spaniels, with short legs. 
 Never take your setters with them ; for you cannot 
 find a dog, any more than a man, master of all 
 trades. They, the spaniels, ought to be slow, mute, 
 and fond of " pottering," or hunting close around 
 you. But the true way to go about this business 
 is to take cover yourself, with only a single steady 
 retriever at your heels. Some thirty or forty yards 
 behind you have a corps of boys with sticks, to beat 
 the bushes, and who will instantly give over when 
 they hear a shot, until the word is again given 
 by you " Go on." They should then proceed as 
 before. 
 
 As this process will certainly cause many of the 
 old birds to run for the cover sides, the boundaries 
 and adjoining fences should be beaten immediately 
 after the cover has been drawn. Here you may be 
 sure of shots, and without the annoyance of boughs 
 and stems of trees to interrupt your aim. All hedge- 
 rows in the vicinity of covers are likely to hold 
 
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 83 
 
 pheasants, but more especially those which run from 
 one to another. Should you design to heat them 
 without disturbing the covers, the best time is early 
 in the morning, after rain, as the dripping of the 
 trees has the effect of driving pheasants abroad 
 In beating for pheasants, more particularly early in 
 the season, don't leave a foot of cover untried : we 
 have often found a whole nide in a tuft you might 
 put under your pocket-handkerchief; and that, too, 
 within a few yards of a spot, where a volley of jokes 
 had been firing off for half an hour. 
 
 Some old sporting writers allude to a practice 
 that once prevailed, of beating thick underwood for 
 pheasants with an ancient pointer, having bells 
 affixed to his neck;' so that when the sportsman 
 ceased to hear them, he became aware there was a 
 point. Upon this style of shooting a modern writer 
 observes, " When a man goes out with his pointers 
 and bells, he ought not to forget the cap for him- 
 self." In extensive woods, pheasants rarely take 
 very long flights ; but when you flush them in the 
 open country, they will soar up to a great height, 
 and then skim out of sight, as if bound for another 
 kingdom. Those who are employed to mark phea- 
 sants, will frequently see them flapping their wings 
 to end their flight, and settle in, or rather precipitate 
 themselves into, some thick bush or hedgerow, where 
 they will perch just above the ground, and remain 
 as still as if dead. In like manner, the hen phea- 
 sant, when sitting, hovers over her nest, and then 
 
84 PHEASANT SHOOTING, 
 
 falls, as it were, perpendicularly into it. This, of 
 course, prevents all scent of their seat. 
 
 During the winter, turnip-fields in the neigh- 
 bourhood of covers, about three in the afternoon, are 
 good places for pheasants. By beating from the 
 cover, with a steady dog, you will get fair sporting. 
 Your dog should quarter from your signal, and drop 
 at wing or shot on the instant. The pheasant is the 
 prince of the game birds of our island, to be met 
 with in such store as to entitle him to the notice of the 
 sportsman. It is true, the capercalzie exists among 
 our forests, and so does the wild turkey of America 
 in the woods of a Yorkshire preserver ; but, as a 
 species, the pheasant is the noblest of British game. 
 Odd enough that we should derive it from China, 
 which certainly does not furnish us with the best 
 samples of " the human form divine." 
 
 The common Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus). 
 Britain cannot boast, among her ornithological beau- 
 ties, the indigenous possession of this bird. It has 
 no claim, in common with any of its family, the 
 Phasianidce, to a place in European fauna. It is, 
 notwithstanding, perhaps, the most successful of all 
 our introductions. It was brought into Britain, in 
 the reign of Edward the First, according to Echard ; 
 and into Europe from Colchis (whence it still retains 
 its name), 1250 years before the Christian era. The 
 pheasant is found in abundance spread over all the 
 woods and forests of England, as well as from the 
 south to the middle of Scotland. In Ireland, from 
 
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 
 
 85 
 
 the impracticability of the preservation of game, it is 
 much more unequally distributed. In our English 
 preserves, the two European birds of different 
 
 THE FHEA.S-- 
 
 plumage, the one strikingly marked in the neck with 
 a white ring, the other without it, have bred toge- 
 ther; and thus we constantly observe specimens of 
 either, or with the mark modified. Of all birds this 
 
86 PHEASANT SHOOTING. 
 
 is the most easily shot ; for when they rise, they make 
 a whizzing and flapping noise that instantly betrays 
 them : besides that, they are heavy on the wing, and 
 of slow flight. Thus Pope says : 
 
 " Ah ! what avail his glossy varying dyes, 
 His purpled crest, and scarlet circled eyes, 
 The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, 
 His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold." 
 
 In the woods, the female makes her nest of dry 
 grass and leaves, and there she lays from eighteen to 
 twenty eggs in a season ; but half that number is 
 above the average, when semi-domesticated in the 
 pheasantry. They will roost upon the highest trees 
 of the forest, at night ; by day, the hens will haunt by 
 dozens the lawns and gardens attached to their pre- 
 serves, and, hunting for their promiscuous food, do 
 considerable damage to fruit and flower. When 
 with the female, the male bird makes a flapping 
 noise, that often betrays its retreats. A pheasant, 
 though so marvellously beautiful, is a dull bird; and 
 the hen, in its domesticated state, loses all the 
 patience, vigilance, and care with which, in the 
 remoter woods, she hatches and rears her brood : 
 indeed, when kept thus, the common hen is fre- 
 quently her substitute over the eggs. A full grown 
 pheasant cares little what food he attacks ; he is 
 immoderately fond of oats and barley. When young, 
 ants' eggs, wood-lice, earwigs, and other insects seem 
 necessary to the bird. It may be brought, or rather 
 
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 87 
 
 it has a tendency, to couple with other gallinaceous 
 birds; with the domestic poultry, the common hen, 
 and even the turkey. It has been known to have 
 intercourse with the black grouse, notwithstanding 
 some very fine hexameters of Mr. Addison to the 
 contrary. 
 
 In our preserves, we find many varieties of 
 plumage ; the female sometimes assumes a pure 
 white, more often than the male bird. The beautiful 
 variety, called the Bohemian Pheasant, of the rich sil- 
 very grey, is well known. Jardine says, that the eggs 
 of the varieties may also be known and separated by 
 the colours of their shells, being of quite different 
 shades. Where the pheasant is wildest, its flesh 
 eats the best. At all epochs, the fame of the phea- 
 sant has been unrivalled, even by the peacock, for 
 beauty. When Croesus, king of Lydia, desirous to 
 dazzle others, or be dazzled himself, by the volup- 
 tuous trappings of his wealth, demanded of the wise 
 man, what could exceed his magnificence? Solon 
 answered simply, that the plumage of the pheasant 
 was finer than all he saw. And, indeed, the artist, 
 the manufacturer, the dyer, the birth-night beauty, 
 or the poet, may faintly imitate, but never reach or 
 surpass the splendours of its vivid hues. That 
 blending of colours, which yet do not intermingle ; 
 that shotting or shading of gem-like radiances, found 
 in the plumage of the pheasant, is its characteristic. 
 Beswick thus describes it : " The pheasant is about 
 two feet eleven inches in length. The bill is of a 
 
88 PHEASANT SHOOTING. 
 
 pale horn colour; the nostrils are hid under an 
 arched covering; eyes yellow, and surrounded by a 
 space, in appearance like scarlet cloth finely spotted 
 with black; immediately under each eye is a small 
 patch of short feathers, of a dark spotted glossy 
 purple ; the upper parts of the head and neck are 
 deep purple, varying to glossy green and blue ; lower 
 parts of the neck and the breast reddish chesnut, with 
 black indented edges; the sides and lower parts of 
 the breast the same, with pretty large tips of black 
 to each feather, which, in different lights, vary to a 
 glossy purple; the belly and vent are dusky; back 
 and scapulus beautifully variegated with black and 
 white, or cream colour, speckled with black, and 
 mixed with deep orange ; all the feathers edged with 
 black; on the lower part of the back is a mixture of 
 green ; the quills are dusky, freckled with white ; 
 wing coverts brown, glossed with green, and edged 
 with white ; rump plain reddish brown ; the two 
 middle feathers of the tail are about twenty inches 
 long, the shortest on each side less than five, of a 
 reddish brown, marked with transverse lines of black ; 
 legs dusky, with a short blunt spur on each, but in 
 some old birds the spurs are as sharp as needles ; 
 between the toes there is a sharp membrane. The 
 female is less, and does not exhibit that variety and 
 brilliancy of plumage which distinguish the male : 
 the general colours are light and dark brown, mixed 
 with black ; the breast and belly finely freckled with 
 small black spots on a light ground ; the tail is short, 
 
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 89 
 
 and barred somewhat like that of the male ; the 
 space round the eye is covered with feathers." 
 Heliogabalus is recorded to have fed the lions of his 
 menagerie with the delicious flesh of these birds. 
 The Greeks, as they ascended the river Phocis, were 
 early caught by the splendid plumage, and intro- 
 duced the pheasant among the Romans, as a common 
 article of luxury among the magnificent. Jardine 
 says, that the pheasant " may be said to be originally 
 restricted to the Asiatic continent, extending over to 
 the greater part of it, and reaching to China and the 
 confines of Tartary." It is now known in Siberia, and 
 has been introduced into North America. The price 
 pheasants bore in England, in the time of Edward 
 the First, was fourpence ; at the same time that a 
 fat mallard was three halfpence, a plover one penny, 
 a couple of woodcocks three halfpence, and a fat 
 lamb at Christmas one shilling and fourpence. At 
 Isola Madre, in the Lago Maggiore, they are in a 
 beautiful prison-land; for they cannot fly over the 
 lake to the continent, their wings are so short, and 
 so ill-adapted for flight; they are drowned when 
 they attempt it. The pheasants of the Archipelago, 
 that go thither from the woods of Thessaly, are 
 accounted the handsomest in the world, besides 
 being the largest. The rich Turks of Salonica use 
 to let fly at them birds of prey, which they carry on 
 their fist. Sonnini thus describes the method: 
 " When the pheasant first takes its flight, the bird 
 of prey, which they let loose, hovering above, com- 
 
90 PHEASANT SHOOTING. 
 
 pels it to perch on some tree ; lie then places him 
 self on another branch over its head, and keeps it in 
 such terror, that it suffers itself to be approached, 
 and easily taken alive." This fact sufficiently deve- 
 lops the mystery of fascination. Mr. Waterton gives 
 us a most valuable remark on breeding pheasants : 
 " Notwithstanding," says he, " the proximity of the 
 pheasant to the nature of the barn-door fowl, it baffles 
 every attempt at complete domestication, from a most 
 singular innate timidity, which never fails to shew 
 itself on the sudden and abrupt appearance of any 
 object. I spent some months in trying to overcome 
 this timorous propensity in the pheasant, but com- 
 pletely failed in my object." At the commencement 
 of the season, the birds that he reared under a 
 common hen, took to the woods: " The more we 
 look into the habits of the pheasant, the more we are 
 persuaded that much more attention ought to be paid 
 to it than it receives, or than is generally paid to 
 other kinds of game. The never-failing morning 
 and evening notice which it gives of its place of 
 retreat, together with its superior size, cause it to be 
 soon detected, and easily killed. The tax, too, 
 which government has put upon it, enhances its value 
 as an indispensable delicacy at the tables of those 
 who give good cheer." 
 
CHAPTER VII, 
 
 PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 
 
 ; Trained to the chase, his eagle eye 
 The ptarmigan in snow could spy." SCOTT. 
 
 BEING a member of the grouse family, in a work 
 merely of natural history, the ptarmigan would have 
 been entitled to a notice among its race ; but, as 
 inferior to the pheasant and partridge, as a bird of 
 game, it must be content to follow them in these 
 pages. Steam navigation, and the recent uncommon 
 facilities of locomotion, have rendered us familiar 
 with the presence of this pretty bird in the shops 
 of the poulterers, without our knowing, or probably 
 caring, " how the devil it got there." Indeed, the 
 most recondite in sporting reading, would have found 
 it difficult to expatiate on the habits, pursuit, and 
 process of sporting after the ptarmigan, till the 
 publication of Mr. Colquhoun's " Moor and Loch." 
 Hawker is silent about it; Daniel spoke of it as 
 somebody had spoken to him ; and Colonel Thornton 
 
92 PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 
 
 says, he shot a batch of them on the top of some 
 mountain near Loch Ennoch. Mr. Elaine, in his 
 Encyclopaedia, also deals with it very cavalierly. 
 Now, there is no doubt but that it is a bird admi- 
 rably in keeping with the districts in which it is 
 found. Perched among the grey rocks, of which it 
 seems a broken fragment, its wild look contrasts 
 strangely with the disregard it manifests of man's 
 presence. You cannot roam over the savage soli- 
 tudes it inhabits, and look on the absence of all 
 knowledge of civilization its demeanour denotes, 
 without being strongly reminded of the stanza in 
 the story of Alexander Selkirk: 
 
 " The beasts that roam over the plain, 
 
 My form with indifference see ; 
 They are so unacquainted with man 
 Their tameness is shocking to me!" 
 
 Like deer-stalking, and a visit to Corinth, it 
 isn't everybody who has had a turn with the white 
 bird of the mountains. We therefore take the 
 liberty of borrowing Mr. Colquhoun's description of 
 a day with the ptarmigan ; it is his second day : 
 
 " When we got to the foot of Ben-Voirla, we 
 found that there were two packs, on what is called 
 the second top, and were thus saved the trouble of 
 scaling the highest. So, taking two young farmers 
 as guides, we reached the ground after a stiff climb. 
 On ranging one side of the mountain, just as we 
 were turning round to the other, the dogs ran into 
 
PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 93 
 
 a small pack, which jerked round an angle, and were 
 out of sight in a moment. I knew their flight w r ould 
 probably be a short one, so began to look about with 
 the utmost caution. My friend, quite a novice in 
 the sport, had no idea of finding the game himself, 
 and continued to hunt the dogs with great assiduity. 
 We happened to be pretty near together when they 
 again poked up a ptarmigan. Neither of us thought 
 of each other, or the ordinary rules of shooting, but 
 fired at once, and down came the bird. This was 
 rather unsatisfactory, as the honour and glory be- 
 longed to neither : however, we determined it should 
 not happen again. I described what places the birds 
 were most likely to haunt, and cautioned against 
 trusting to the dogs, which are quite unaccustomed 
 to the ground ; but finding my companion preferred 
 his own plan, I left him, and commenced my slow 
 and wary search. At last I caught sight of a ptarmi- 
 gan upon the very ridge of the hill, about thirty 
 yards above me. It was in a crouching attitude, and 
 had I attempted to put it up. would have dipped out 
 of sight in an instant. I was therefore obliged to 
 shoot it sitting ; but the moment I fired, another flew 
 straight over my head, his hoarse croak proclaiming 
 the cock of the pack. I had a fair shot, and down he 
 dropped. The first I killed being a hen, they made 
 a capital pair for my collection. 
 
 " I was now very anxious my brother sportsman 
 should have a good chance ; so, joining company, we 
 scrutinized the ground on every side, without success : 
 
94 PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 
 
 only one bird was put up, out of all distance, which 
 my friend determined to follow. So, agreeing to 
 meet at the foot of the hill, we took different ranges. 
 Fortune again declared in my favour, for just as I 
 was scrambling, with hands and knees, up a steep 
 precipice, a pack of four rose upon the very top, and 
 flew into mid air, just giving me time to steady 
 myself, cock my gun, and get a distant shot, when 
 one of them dropped into the gulf below. I sent my 
 guide to fetch it, which he accomplished with some 
 difficulty; and then dispatched him in quest of my 
 less successful companion, with the injunction, that if 
 he joined in pursuit of my game, the odds would be 
 three to one in his favour. 
 
 " I had scarcely got to the peak, where I thought 
 it most probable my three fugitives would again take 
 refuge, when I was overtaken by one of those bitter 
 hail showers which often fall on the mountains in 
 early autumn ; so, placing my gun in its waterproof 
 cover, and my back, Fitzjames like, against a rock, I 
 impatiently hoped for the cessation of the storm. 
 Scarcely had it began to abate, when an Alpine hare 
 came courtseying past, about eighty yards from my 
 shelter, and then seated herself with equal grace as 
 tempting a mark for a rifle as could possibly be placed. 
 It was not to be resisted, even with my small shot ; 
 so, slowly uncasing my gun, and taking deadly aim, 
 I fired. Puss gave an active bound at this unlooked- 
 for attack, and took her leave with far less ceremony 
 than she made her entree. 
 
PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 95 
 
 " I had just re-loaded, when my guide appeared 
 with a breathless malediction on my gun. He had 
 seen my friend going down the mountain, but quite 
 beyond recall, and, when returning to me, had 
 stumbled on the ptarmigan, most conspicuously 
 perched on the top of a rock. He was in the act 
 of taking his marks, to know the place again, in 
 the hope of finding me, when my shot abruptly put 
 an end to his schemes. The birds were equally 
 dissatisfied with the sound, as their four-footed ally 
 of the crags, and made the same use of their wings 
 as she did of her legs. It was now late ; but as the 
 man had some idea of where they might be, I could 
 not resist the temptation of giving them one more 
 trial. We had almost given up hope, when they a 
 third time rose, very wild, fully a hundred yards off, 
 from a knoll of moss, where they were at feed. My 
 time was now up, so I descended the mountain, well 
 pleased with my day's sport, notwithstanding the 
 mishap at the end." 
 
 Ptarmigan shooting may be set down as the 
 "caviare to the million:" few will think "the play 
 worth the candle," as the French saw has it; the 
 bird being, moreover, to the gourmand (following our 
 experience of its flavour) pretty much like the Irish- 
 man's horse, very hard to catch, and not worth 
 the trouble when overtaken. Ptarmigan change 
 their plumage about October, when they put on a 
 double suit of feathers, in anticipation of winter. 
 They are then white ; in spring they are more brown, 
 
96 
 
 PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 
 
 grey, or the same colour as the rocks among which 
 they live. 
 
 The common, or White Ptarmigan ; White Grouse 
 of British authors. Sir W. Jardine, whose authority, 
 as a naturalist, is unquestionably great, speaks of 
 
 frequent so-called specimens of this species, Lag opus 
 mutus, thus doubtfully: "This bird, delicately 
 marked in its summer dress, and of a snowy white- 
 ness in that of winter, has generally been considered 
 as a native of both the American and European 
 continents. The comparison, however, of many spe- 
 cimens of grouse, which become white in winter, leads 
 us to believe that the distinction of species is still 
 undetermined. We have seen, however, what we 
 
PTAEMIGAN SHOOTING. 97 
 
 consider the L. mutus, from Arctic America, and 
 also among the packages of birds which are said by 
 the poulterers to come from Norway (in a frozen 
 state). But many of the birds mentioned as ptar- 
 migan, from various localities, cannot always with 
 certainty be referred to that of Britain." 
 
 The common ptarmigan is clothed during winter 
 with a plumage of pure white, with the exception of 
 the black markings of the outer tail feathers and 
 shafts of quills, and the space between the bill and 
 the eyes. In summer the markings turn dark grey, 
 or brown-grey, wattled with black ; thus, in all 
 seasons, taking, by the beautiful ordination of Pro- 
 vidence, those hues, that, assimilating with the grey 
 rock, or snow-covered pinnacle, best assist its con- 
 cealment from the piercing sight of its feathered 
 assailants, and preserve it from the more erring aim 
 of its human enemy. The female, at breeding time, 
 changes her plumage towards a fine ochreous yellow, 
 crossed broadly with black, while the under parts 
 remain white. It is, as we have heard, unknown 
 whether the male also changes his plumage at the 
 season of incubation, or whether the change to grey- 
 ish hues takes place when he moults. Although this 
 bird now inhabits none but those Alpine solitudes all 
 but inaccessible to the enterprise of man, it is said, 
 in some of our oldest writers, to have been frequent 
 enough, at one period, in the hilly parts of England, 
 such as Westmoreland and Cumberland. We must 
 climb the peaks of Ben Voirla, Ben Veira, and Ben 
 
98 PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 
 
 Lomond in the western highlands, and dwell for a 
 space in the shepherd's hut of the mountains of 
 Ross and Inverness, ere we can now accomplish the 
 feat of securing a few brace of these wild birds. The 
 Grampian range is the most southerly resort of the 
 ptarmigan at present. It is often tracked by its call, 
 a low, wild, wailing note, or by the cluck of the 
 female. They appear little to dread the sight of 
 man, but will, amid the mountain mosses, run before 
 him, or drop from ledge to ledge of the precipitous 
 rock, as slowly and silently as though practising a 
 lesson taught by reason. In the spring and summer 
 they are very tame. Their flight is low and wheeling, 
 and the whiz of the wing not to be heard even in 
 the rarefied atmosphere of their chosen dwelling- 
 place. Their nests are very difficult of discovery, 
 being placed under rocks and stones; and the female, 
 following the true bird instinct, always leaves the nest 
 in being alarmed, and wheels away over the rocks, 
 clucking as she goes. This bird is not indigenous 
 to Ireland. 
 
 The Lagopus rupestris is considered a distinct 
 species, in the British list of " Ptarmigan," by some 
 authors ; but as Mr. Yarrel is far from satisfied that 
 the L. rupestris is anything but " a seasonal or sexual 
 variety" of the L. mutus, we will only give the speci- 
 fication of the female bird, shot by Sir W. Jardine, 
 on Ben More, Sutherlandshire. " The rock ptar- 
 migan. The entire length is rather more than twelve 
 inches ; seven and a half inches from the wing to the 
 
PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 99 
 
 third quill ; of the tarsus, one inch five-eighths, equal- 
 ling that of the centre toe, nail included; the nail 
 about five-eighths. On the upper parts, the dark or 
 ground colour of the feathers is deep brownish, or 
 pitch black ; but each feather is cut into, or partially 
 barred, with ochreous-yellow, on the back and tail 
 coverts, being tipped and edged with a much paler 
 tint, sometimes approaching to yellowish white ; the 
 quills, secondaries, and shoulders are pure white; 
 the shafts of the former black, and having sometimes 
 a brownish black tint accompanying their length ; the 
 tail contains sixteen feathers ; the outer pair are 
 edged with white along the outer web ; and, with the 
 next six, on each side, are dull black, white at the 
 tips, where they are also slightly worn ; the upper 
 coverts reach within a quarter of an inch of the end of 
 the tail. On the cheeks, throat, neck, and breast, 
 the yellow and pale markings predominate to a 
 greater extent; and, on the latter, assume more the 
 form of bars; on the belly, flank, and other lower 
 parts, the yellow markings still prevail, and assume a 
 greater space in the form of transverse broken masses, 
 while, in the lower part of the breast and centre of 
 the belly, there are many pure white feathers, which 
 give a paler or more hoary shade to these parts ; the 
 tarsi and half of the toes only are strongly feathered ; 
 the nails are brownish black, pale at the base." Now 
 the size of the common ptarmigan is from fourteen to 
 sixteen inches in the male bird, and sometimes 
 larger; in the female fourteen inches. Sir W. 
 
100 PTAKMIGAN SHOOTING. 
 
 Jarcline's specimen of the female of the rock ptarmi- 
 gan, twelve inches and a half; average length of male 
 specimen, thirteen and a half. The rich, soft, dark 
 pencillings of ochreous yellow of the female at breed- 
 ing season, render it a peculiarly beautiful bird ; its 
 plumage being much brighter and clearer than that 
 of the male in the autumnal months. Their food 
 is supposed to be the mountain plants of their own 
 inaccessible regions. 
 
 The common ptarmigan seems completely inac- 
 cessible to a sensation of cold. Ever avoiding the 
 sun's rays, he chooses the pinnacles of the moun- 
 tains, and its biting frosts ; and when the snow 7 melts 
 at the sides of the mountains, he still ascends higher 
 and higher. In Mr. Daniel's account of them he 
 says, " Ptarmigans are thinly scattered upon the 
 lofty hills near Keswick, in Cumberland, and some 
 few in Wales. . . . They are silly birds, and 
 so tame as to bear driving like poultry, and to suffer 
 a stone to be flung at them without rising ; yet, not- 
 withstanding this gentleness of disposition, it is im- 
 possible to domesticate them; they refuse to eat 
 when caught, and always die soon afterwards. So 
 heedless are they, that it is not even necessary to 
 have a dog to find them. As an edible, they taste 
 so like a grouse as to be scarcely distinguishable, and 
 keep in summer in small packs ; but never, like the 
 grouse, take shelter in the heath, but beneath loose 
 stones. In winter the white ptarmigans assemble 
 and fly in flocks, still preserving their stupid tame- 
 
PTAKMIGAN SHOOTING. 101 
 
 ness : at that season, when they perceive any person, 
 they remain quiet upon the snow, to avoid being 
 seen ; and are often betrayed by their very white- 
 ness, which surpasses that of the snow. 
 
 The plumage of the ptarmigan not only becomes 
 of this snow white in winter, but much thicker, 
 closer, and more downy ; thus proving the beautiful 
 economy of nature : for as colour is well known to 
 influence the rate by which bodies acquire, reflect, 
 or part with heat; and as white is the colour w r hich 
 most readily and perfectly reflects it, and which most 
 difficultly parts with it, so a body clothed with that 
 colour shall retain heat longest, and, therefore, be 
 better fitted - to exist in the coldest latitudes. It is 
 the limited expenditure of vital heat, therefore, 
 in the ptarmigan, that is supposed to influence its 
 choice of situation. Mr. Daniel thus scientifically 
 puts an example : " If two animals, one of a black 
 colour and the other white, be placed in a higher 
 temperature than that of their own body, the heat 
 will enter the one that is black with the greatest 
 rapidity, and elevate its temperature considerably 
 above the other. But when these animals are placed 
 in a situation, the temperature of which is consider- 
 ably lower than their own, the black animal will give 
 out its heat by radiation to every surrounding object 
 colder than itself, and speedily have its temperature 
 reduced ; while the white animal will part with its 
 heat by radiation at a much slow r er rate." 
 
THE RETRIEVER. 
 
 THOUGH not so essential to the suite of the sports- 
 man in pursuit of game as the water-spaniel to the 
 wild-fowl shooter, the Retriever is a most useful, 
 as well as becoming, companion in the field. In 
 cover, it is not possible to dispense with his services 
 without a vast sacrifice of game : for such is the loss 
 of all badly wounded birds, and, indeed, of nearly 
 every head of game that is hit. In thick under- 
 wood, not only will a dog recover nine birds out of 
 ten that a man would miss, but it disturbs them also 
 just in an inverse ratio. Pointers and setters are 
 both trained to retrieve, but it is a bad economy ; 
 the retriever should be limited to hunting, in or out 
 of cover, for wounded game, and bringing it to bag. 
 There are various opinions as to the best cross from 
 which this valuable sporting servant can be bred. 
 Perhaps as good as any, is that between a strong, 
 low-sized setter bitch and a pure Newfoundland dog. 
 Our own bias leans to a cross with a Newfoundland dog 
 and a pointer bitch ; animals so bred certainly excel 
 in nose. The pointer itself can be taught to retrieve ; 
 but when so used, he must not hunt in company. 
 
 A gentleman, of the name of Callender, an in- 
 habitant of Edinburgh, had not long since a retrieving 
 pointer, which, when bringing to him in its mouth a 
 bird he had just shot, hit upon the scent of another, 
 a wonderful instance of nose. The animal coolly 
 laid the bird on the ground, and putting his foot 
 
SHOOTING THE RETRIEVER. 103 
 
 upon it, to prevent its escape, as it was only wounded, 
 pointed to that it had found. The same creature also 
 evinced- extraordinary sagacity on another occasion, 
 when his master was shooting in Berwickshire, on 
 the banks of the Tweed, which is opposite to Till- 
 mouth Castle. The birds which he had sprung made 
 across the river, there being a preserve on the other side ; 
 but one of them, which he had shot while crossing, fell 
 into the water, and was carried down by the stream. 
 He would not suffer his dog to move until he had re- 
 loaded, when, on getting the word " Seek dead," the 
 observant animal galloped down the bank until he 
 recovered sight of the floating pheasant, and then, 
 plunging into the river, brought it safe to shore. 
 
 The author had a retriever, as perfect in its busi- 
 ness as, perhaps, one of its kind ever was; bred 
 between the bull-dog and smooth terrier. This rare 
 creature was as complete in all the duties of a land- 
 retriever as in those of a water-spaniel. She was 
 more than amphibious : living, in fact, in the water, 
 especially the sea, whenever the opportunity was 
 afforded her. In sagacity and courage, if she ever 
 had a parallel, she never had a superior. A shoot- 
 ing party, of which he was one, having returned to 
 lunch, a keeper reported, that as the woods were 
 being beaten for pheasants, two or three woodcocks 
 had been flushed. It was very early in the season 
 for such visitors, and a sweepstakes of 5 each was 
 made, to be divided among the subscribers, according 
 to the number of cocks that each should bring home 
 
104 
 
 SHOOTING THE RETRIEVER. 
 
 by dinner-time. In crossing the lawn close to the 
 house, on their way to the covers intended to be 
 drawn, a cock was put up from a holly-bush, which one 
 of the company was fortunate enough to bring down. 
 
 . RETRIEVER. 
 
 This was a promising beginning, but it brought 
 little luck, as, in spite of the closest beating, not 
 another could be met with. Just as the word was 
 given to call the beaters out and to prepare for home, 
 however, and when it was so dark that it was im- 
 possible to see objects a dozen paces off, a woodcock 
 
SHOOTING THE KETRIEVEK. 105 
 
 sprung close to the narrator, and, without being able 
 to cover it, he fired in the line it was flying, and 
 thought he heard something fall and flutter among the 
 underwood. It could not, nevertheless, be found ; 
 and after losing his time and his patience, he was 
 just back soon enough not to lose his dinner to boot. 
 
 Now this bird was of no ordinary value, for it 
 would have entitled him to one half of a sweepstakes 
 of 35, the whole of which would otherwise go to the 
 possessor of the first woodcock that was shot. In 
 due course, the lucky subscriber claimed the money, 
 which, at the instance of the author, was withheld 
 for the night, as he urged he had knocked down a 
 cock, that would most probably be yet brought to bag. 
 To make one great final effort, he procured the bird 
 which had been killed, and laying it carefully before 
 his retriever, with a strong light thrown on it, and 
 then drawing it repeatedly across her nose, he re- 
 turned with her to the cover, and cheering her with 
 the signal " Seek dead ! " he put her into it. After 
 waiting till midnight, and using every effort to reclaim 
 her, he returned, leaving her there. In the morning 
 she made her way into the breakfast-room, during 
 the meal, with the dead woodcock in her mouth ! 
 
 As a proof of her courage, she would leap, at a 
 signal from his hand, from off the paddle-box of a 
 steam-vessel of the largest class, when going at full 
 speed, and in the heaviest weather, with seas rolling as 
 high as the funnel. Alas, poor Venom ! he may surely 
 say of thee, he " shall ne'er look upon thy like again,' 1 
 
CHAPTER Till. 
 
 QUAIL SHOOTING. 
 
 THIS little bird is not a regular object of pursuit with 
 our sportsmen, for the best of reasons that it is 
 never found in any numbers in this country. It is a 
 bird of passage, essentially migratory, and, as a na- 
 tive, can scarcely be claimed by any of the British 
 islands, except Ireland. Here, to our experience, 
 it frequently breeds ; not like the woodcock, or any 
 variety, indeed, of migratory birds only when it 
 cannot manage to go elsewhere but apparently from 
 choice, and habits of domestication. We have fre- 
 quently watched bevies of quail, in several of the 
 Irish counties, from their shells till they have found 
 their way to our game-bags and, indeed, to our 
 stomach ; for observe, your quail is the daintiest of 
 eating. When the English shooter lights upon 
 them, it is by chance, among the partridges, in 
 September ; but the Irish amateur of the trigger 
 falls in with them " all alone by themselves," among 
 
QUAIL SHOOTING. 107 
 
 the potatoes, in October. We think they may be 
 classed among Irish game, without fear of a bull. 
 No doubt they are capricious, and may, some fine 
 day, desert the shores of the Emerald Isle, as they 
 are said to have done those of Great Britain ; but 
 for the present, St. Patrick may safely claim them 
 for his own. 
 
 Pointers and setters are both partial to the scent 
 of the quail, setting it as readily as the pheasant or 
 the partridge. It resorts to the stubbles, and occasion- 
 ally the long after-growth of the meadows : during 
 the morning it is most readily met with. All the 
 authorities on shooting leave this specimen of the 
 craft untouched, or nearly so ; indeed, with one ex- 
 ception, no modern sporting book treats of the bird 
 at all from original materials. This exception is a 
 paper which appeared, some few years since, in the 
 "New Sporting Magazine;" the result of some consi- 
 derable experience in the English history of the quail. 
 The author seems to have studied his lore in the 
 Isle of Thanet ; where, he says, this bird is to be 
 found at all seasons of the year. That locality, he 
 states, was formerly so famous for it, either from its 
 vicinity to the French coast, or the quantity of grain 
 grown there, that people resorted to it from great 
 distances, for the express purpose of quail shooting. 
 Latterly, however, he says, their numbers have con- 
 siderably fallen off; but still the sportsman, in the 
 beginning of September, may kill from two to three 
 brace a-day. " Along the banks of the Thames, 
 
108 QUAIL SHOOTING. 
 
 below Purfleet," says this writer, " several farmers 
 and sportsmen have assured me, that, about the be- 
 ginning of November, a time at which the departure 
 of the main body has taken place, a small number of 
 quails make their appearance, and continue during 
 the winter, always a short distance from the river's 
 edge. These are evidently the young birds of the 
 second bevy, who, for some reason, seek that parti- 
 cular situation after the migration of the rest of their 
 species." 
 
 As most of the migratory birds all those that 
 may be called game of the second class are more 
 scarce with us than they were, it follows that the 
 quail is in a similar category. For this cause we 
 find them more plentiful in Ireland than England ; 
 the former island being also infinitely better supplied 
 with woodcocks and snipe than the latter. The 
 migratory tribes, no doubt, recede before civilization, 
 and are found precisely in the inverse ratio to the 
 cultivation of the district. As they cannot be sub- 
 jected to the process of preserving, the day will 
 probably come when one of the species will be as 
 rare as a bustard is now. 
 
 It is said, that quails do not pack except when 
 some strong local cause drives them to associate 
 together, for an especial purpose. The family of 
 migratory birds is not certainly gregarious ; but our 
 own experience of this bird leads us to think it is an 
 exception to the general rule of the species. We 
 have never found it in that state of isolation, common 
 
QUAIL SHOOTING. 109 
 
 to the snipe and woodcock. It is met with singly, no 
 doubt, but where one is, you may be sure there are 
 more not far off; while very often one woodcock is all 
 that fifty acres will furnish, with the closest beating 
 of the cover. With our savoury recollections of this 
 feathered bonne louche, we are unwilling to surrender 
 it to the calumnies of those few who have thought it 
 even worthy their ill favour. " Quails," says the author 
 of " Kural Sports," " seldom form themselves into 
 coveys, except when their wants unite the feeble 
 family to their mother ; or some powerful cause urges 
 at once the whole species to assemble and traverse 
 together the extent of the ocean, holding their course 
 to the same distant land : but this forced association 
 does not subsist after their alighting, and finding 
 in their adopted country that they can live at all. 
 The appetite of love is their only tie, and even this is 
 momentary : so soon as passion has spent its force, 
 the male abandons his mate to the labour of raising 
 the family; the young quails are hardly full grown 
 when they separate, or, if kept together, fight ob- 
 stinately, and their quarrels are terminated only by 
 their mutual destruction." It must be confessed 
 this is no amiable character of our quarry, and be- 
 longs to its natural (or rather unnatural) history, 
 more than its sporting treatment. But the fact is, 
 quail shooting is not legitimately a branch of English 
 shooting. 
 
 The Common Quail (Tetrao coturnix). The quail 
 seems to be a more permanent resident of Ireland 
 
110 
 
 QUAIL SHOOTING. 
 
 than of Great Britain : in the latter kingdom, indeed, 
 it is now but an occasional visitant; although, thirty \ 
 years back, it was a pretty regular attendant of the 
 
 stubble fields near the coasts, at their season, in the 
 mild south and midland counties of England. This 
 bird is so wary, that after the first time it is wonder- 
 fully difficult to flush. Almost all the birds in our 
 market, of this species, are those imported alive (to 
 fatten) by the London poulterers, from France ; where 
 they are most abundant, and where they are taken by 
 nets, into which the imitation of their call entraps 
 them. But in Sicily is the greatest quail harvest. 
 On its coast, in Italy, and the Greek islands, they 
 will arrive by hundreds of thousands. Formerly the 
 principal revenue of the Bishop of Capri was the 
 
QUAIL SHOOTING. Ill 
 
 sum produced by the annual visits of these birds : 
 they have been known to have been taken, at one 
 season, to the number of a hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand. 
 
 In Ireland, the farmers on the coast, south of 
 Strangford Loch, are very successful in the capture 
 of quails. We have known them to bring in five 
 and six brace of these delicate birds, the produce 
 of the day's sport. Jardine says, in 1836 a gentle- 
 man shot, near Belfast Bay, in one day, ten brace of 
 quails. 
 
 The nest of the quail is made by the female ; its 
 eggs are deposited on the bare ground: they are 
 somewhat similar in appearance to those of the snipe, 
 being deeply marked with olive-green, but are of dif- 
 ferent shape. We subjoin Jar dine 's account of this 
 bird: "The geographical range of the quail is of 
 great extent, reaching northward to Eussia and Scan- 
 dinavia, found in the intermediate countries of tem- 
 perate heat, and abounding in continental India and 
 Africa. We possess specimens, which do not mate- 
 rially differ from each other, from Madeira, Alpine 
 India, the plains of India, China, Cape of Good 
 Hope, and Southern Europe. A specimen, shot at 
 Jardine Hall in autumn, has the crowni nearly black, 
 the feathers edged with pale chesnut ; streaks of ochre 
 yellow run over each eye ; and the centre .space 
 between the eyes, and bill, and auriculars, are ches- 
 nut. Colour of the upper parts black, having the 
 shafts and a lanceolate mark in the centre of each 
 
112 QUAIL SHOOTING. 
 
 ochreous yellow, palest at the tip, where the wings 
 join the body ; the central markings are wanting, and 
 the black is relieved by grey tips and wavy bars of 
 Sienna yellow ; throat, pale ochreous yellow, bounded 
 by a deep, blackish-brown gorget, and on the sides 
 cut into by a dark stripe of the same colour, running 
 from the gape, and turning inwards near the middle 
 of the pale space ; breast yellowish wood-brown, 
 shading into pale ochreous on the lower parts; on 
 the breast, the feathers are marked with two round 
 or oval spots, on the exterior of each web ; on the 
 flanks these patches border each feather irregularly, 
 bounding a pale open space along the shafts, which 
 is nearly pure white." 
 
 The above was a female quail ; as are all or most 
 of those that are met with in autumn. The plumage 
 of the male is darker ; there is more chesnut in the 
 tints, and the breast is of a reddish brown, pale, and 
 without spots, while the chin and throat are brown- 
 black, so mingled as to form, in that part, which is 
 pale space, in the female, a sort of cross. 
 
CHAPTER IX, 
 
 BXJSTARD SHOOTING. 
 
 As the reader's acquaintance with this bird, once 
 the pride of our wild feathered tribes, will most pro- 
 bably be confined to such specimens as he shall cul- 
 tivate an acquaintance with in a museum, a very 
 short allusion to its sporting annals will suffice for 
 his curiosity on that head. According to old Mark- 
 ham, a stalking-horse was even in his day essential to 
 enable the pursuer to accomplish a shot; and the 
 shepherds were wont to dress out a hurdle with green 
 boughs, behind which the sportsman would lie in 
 wait for his game. From this it will be gathered, 
 that it is very long since Bustard shooting was com- 
 mon to our island. In the year 1800, Daniel says, 
 there was one shot which measured six feet from the 
 tip of one wing to the tip of the other; and three 
 feet from the point of the beak to the extremity of 
 the tail. Buffon tells us, that one was shot in 
 France, in his time, which had " no less than ninety 
 
 3 2 
 
114 
 
 BUSTAED SHOOTING. 
 
 doubloons in its stomach." If the English bustards 
 were in the habit of carrying so much money about 
 them, there can be no difficulty in accounting for 
 their present scarcity. 
 
 THE BCTSTAED. 
 
 The Great Bustard (Otis Tarda);of the family 
 of the Struthionidae, or Ostriches. We must speak 
 of this, our largest land bird, rather in the past than 
 in the present tense. This is one of the birds that 
 
BUSTAED SHOOTING. 115 
 
 have fled before population and agriculture. It 
 was formerly seen in flocks of fifty, or more, upon 
 extensive downs or heaths : such as Salisbury Plain, 
 the heaths of Sussex, the Dorsetshire uplands, New- 
 market Heath, and the like ; and as far north as 
 East Lothian, in Scotland : but their appearance has 
 become almost a tradition. Mr. Yarrel states, that 
 nineteen were seen together at Westcape, in Norfolk, 
 so late as 1819; and that they are carefully preserved 
 by the proprietor. Royston Heath, Devonshire and 
 Wiltshire, Suffolk and Lincolnshire have been men- 
 tioned as localities, from whence occasional specimens 
 are procured. In Ireland they seem to have existed, 
 although now extinct. 
 
 The male bustard weighs about twenty-seven 
 pounds, if a fine bird; the neck a foot long, the 
 legs a foot and a half, the wings short in proportion 
 to the body, about four feet from the tip of the one 
 to the other. The bird is powerful in flight, but 
 extremely slow in rising ; its preservation was, there- 
 fore, chiefly maintained by its great range of sight : 
 living in open plains where it was almost impossible 
 to approach it without discovery. Without a hedge 
 or fence to screen them, how could the sports- 
 man mark his game? how could the fowler creep 
 among them? It is recorded, however, that the 
 bustard was run down by greyhounds. After feeding 
 voraciously on the large heath- worms of their native 
 plains, and upon the berries of the plants incident to 
 their localities, they became so pursed out and fat, as 
 
116 BUSTARD SHOOTING. 
 
 to be unable to fly without great difficulty. Thus 
 flapping its wings, in order to get enough air under- 
 neath them to permit its rising, it would run before 
 the enemy, and often be caught. The bustard has a 
 pouch under the tongue to contain water. There is 
 little record of them in North Britain. One was 
 shot in 1803 in Morayshire. The rifle is used to 
 shoot them, as well as the ordinary fowling-piece. 
 " The male bustard will stand two feet six or eight 
 inches in height, and, when the lengthened fea- 
 thers, which most of them possess on the throat, or 
 sides of the jaw, are raised, they have a very bold 
 and commanding appearance." The back of neck, 
 shoulders, &c., have reddish-orange feathers, trans- 
 versed with interrupted bars of black. The head, 
 neck, and breast are bluish-grey, shading at the 
 lower part of the breast into pale grey and pure 
 white. Outer coverts, greyish white, secondaries, 
 deep brown-black : very powerful quills, the first 
 sharp, the under with their outer web expanding, 
 and becoming brown or black at their extremities. 
 The mid-tail feathers, reddish-orange, with white tips, 
 and a black bar, crossing at about an inch from the 
 end, and then a narrower one towards the base. 
 Generic characters : bill almost straight, depressed 
 slightly at the base ; open nostrils ; long legs ; the 
 tarsi naked above the knees ; toes, three forwards, 
 bordered with a scutellated membrane ; and short 
 wings, powerful; second, third, and fourth quills 
 largest, nearly equal ; first narrow towards the point. 
 
BUSTAKD SHOOTING. 
 
 117 
 
 Type : Otis tarda ; Europe, Asia, Africa, New Hol- 
 land. 
 
 Note. Inhabit open plains and champaign 
 countries, where vegetation is rankly luxuriant : poly- 
 gamous ; run swiftly. 
 
 THE LITTLE BUSTARD. 
 
 The Little Bustard (Otis Minor). This is an 
 unfrequent British visitant ; subject to a very great 
 change of plumage, of which we cannot accurately 
 speak, since it appears in England only after incubation 
 is over, and in its more homely garb. One was killed 
 near Montrose, in Scotland, in the winter of 1833. 
 
CHAPTER X, 
 
 HARE SHOOTING. 
 
 WE trust it is as unnecessary to tell the courteous 
 reader, that, in walking through an aviary, he is not 
 to knock the gold and silver pheasants on the head 
 with his cane, as that it is unlawful for him to shoot 
 a hare, in a country where harriers are kept, or a dis- 
 trict favourable for coursing. Still there is ample 
 space and room enough for this sport ; which, in 
 some places, absolutely becomes an operation not to 
 be dispensed with in the morality of sporting, so to 
 speak. Without going into the question of the con- 
 
HARE SHOOTING. 119 
 
 venience of the practice, it is enough for our purpose 
 here to state, that in many parts of England, where 
 game preserving is very rigorously carried on, hares 
 so abound as to be a gigantic nuisance. In such 
 places hare shooting is a virtue ; and that our young- 
 friends may excel in that good work, we put before 
 them the best advice in our power. 
 
 We do not treat you as going out to look for 
 hares, but rather as in some place where they most 
 do congregate. If we thought you had any difficulty 
 in the matter of finding this species of game, we 
 could point out that it keeps to the standing corn, so 
 long as any is to be met with ; and that when no 
 more remains, hares resort for shelter to covers and 
 hedges, to fallows and long wild grass, to the sides 
 and bottoms of old dry ditches and grips ; and that 
 after heavy rains, which fill the ditches, and cause 
 dripping from the trees and hedges, they are to be 
 found lying out upon close wheat stubbles. When it 
 is again dry, they return to covert ; there remaining 
 till the frost has robbed the trees of their leaves ; 
 and then, no hiding being afforded by the woods, 
 they betake themselves for good, to the open fields, 
 and make their forms, wherever enough of rough 
 vegetation exists to enable them to crouch among 
 it. Young wheat fields are their favourite localities, 
 and occasionally, old ploughed fallows ; in these, 
 within a range of some thirty or forty yards distance 
 from the hedges, you will be most likely to light 
 upon them. This, we say, we should have told you, 
 
120 HAKE SHOOTING. 
 
 did we suppose you would ever condescend to look 
 for hares. 
 
 But we see you in the midst of a preserve, where 
 they are as numerous as the sands upon the sea- 
 shore. Accept some of our maxims as applicable 
 to such a case. Should you by any accident espy 
 a hare on her form, don't fire at her sitting; if 
 not because it is unbecoming a sportsman, at all 
 events, because by putting her up, you will have 
 the best chance of putting her into your bag. A 
 hare, when running, especially across you, is very 
 easily shot; whereas an old puss on her form, is very 
 far from being an easy object to hit. In shooting 
 them when the lands lie in high ridges, should 
 a hare run across ridge and furrow, take care not to 
 fire till she is rising, and about mid-way between the 
 furrow and the ridge. If you wait till she has got to 
 the top of the land, her head, which is the most 
 vulnerable part, will be covered by her haunches : 
 for the same reason, when a hare is running straight 
 from you, on level ground, just aim so that you may 
 seem to skim her back with your charge. 
 
 When a hare approaches you, wait till she is well 
 within reach of shot; then whistle, or make some 
 sign upon which she will stop for an instant, and 
 then turn to one side or the other. Take her when 
 her side is towards you : it 's long odds you miss her 
 entirely should you fire when she is coming " stem 
 on," as the sailors say. It is within the letter of the 
 law to shoot leverets at all times ; but it is unsports- 
 
HAEE SHOOTING. 121 
 
 manlike to shoot them until they are pretty well 
 grown. 
 
 The hare being capable of carrying away a great 
 charge of shot, as well as of turning one that would 
 deal death to any other sort of game except the 
 deer tribe it may be as well to hint the material, as 
 well as the method, by which it may most efficiently 
 be assailed. If possible, let her be within forty yards 
 for a cross shot, or thirty when going straight from 
 you. There is no excuse for the sportsman, who 
 goes out expressly to shoot hares, loading with 
 smaller shot than No. 4. Large shot does its business 
 effectively when it does hit. One of its pellets 
 will kill, should it take effect; while No. 6 or 7, 
 should it reach the object, can only wound or maim. 
 If the young shooter, says a very practical authority, 
 discover, as he will, that, in shooting in covert, he 
 must sometimes fire either at very short distances, or 
 not get a shot at all, it will be essential for him either 
 to acquire the knack of shooting on one side of his 
 game, or to let it go free. The latter is the plan I 
 should recommend, except in the case of a woodcock 
 likely to fly out of bounds ; which, within forty- eight 
 hours, may, perhaps, be regaling himself in an Irish 
 bog. This gentleman says, no one who goes out 
 to shoot hares should use less than No. 2 or 3 shot. 
 
 The instinct of animals is, in almost every case, 
 superior to the reason of man ; for the one is un- 
 erring, the other constantly at fault. It is singular 
 to observe, also, that every power shared by man in 
 
122 HARE SHOOTING. 
 
 common with other animals, is possessed by him in 
 a far inferior manner. His sight is less piercing, 
 his nose less penetrating, his motion less swift, than 
 that of the brute creation. He is more helpless in 
 his infancy, and less courageous in his death. The 
 very insect race beat him in geometrical precision. 
 The bee and the spider were the first, the ori- 
 ginal inventors of the octagon and arch. The 
 beaver is a better economist of space ; and many 
 birds are endowed with organs of hearing, in com- 
 parison with which man can only deem himself aristo- 
 cratically deaf. It is well, then, for the vanity of 
 the human race, that he can boast of being divinely 
 endowed with that faculty of speech, by which we can 
 take full advantage of our otherwise limited re- 
 sources ; which enables generation after generation 
 to act in progressive concert with its species, and 
 thus renders subservient to our uses, pleasures, 
 and adornments, the wonderful gifts and graces of 
 every known tribe of the animate creation. 
 
 Among swift-footed quadrupeds, we may claim 
 precedence for the hare. The mechanism of ite 
 frame is such, that every joint and muscle tends to 
 promote the rapidity of its locomotion on the grounds 
 to which its instinct confines it. Its loins are ex- 
 tremely nervous and muscular ; and these act upon 
 the hindermost limbs, whose length and power ren- 
 der them capable of immensely rapid contraction and 
 expansion : its fore-legs are in proportion short ; thus 
 enabling the creature to form that succession of leaps, 
 
HARE SHOOTING. 123 
 
 which is its real mode of progression, and by which 
 it claims affinity with the marsupial tribes. " It 
 is this curtailment of the fore-legs, in comparison 
 with the hinder, that directs the hare instinctively 
 to seek a rising ground, when flying from its pur- 
 suers." The under-surfaces of its feet are, further- 
 more, provided amply with protecting hair ; it has 
 five toes to its fore-feet, and only four behind. The 
 mean length of the hare, when full grown, is about 
 two feet ; its weight is various : five, six, seven, 
 eight, nine, some even have been known to weigh 
 twelve, pounds. The colour of the fur of the hare 
 varies with the climate, and with the season. Even 
 in England, black and milk-white hares have been 
 met with ; pied ones have been talked about ; and 
 every gradation of grey is incident to the animal. 
 The ordinary tint is, however, an iron-grey ; the 
 chin white ; the throat of a rusty yellow hue ; the 
 belly white ; the breast reddish ; its facial extremity 
 black. Thus, in harmony with the tints around her, 
 is she clothed, in the coldest regions, ever with the 
 lightest hues. Elaine forcibly remarks, that the 
 want of the elastic padding, which bounds the soles 
 of the feet of some animals, as dogs, for instance, is 
 unfavourable to the progress of hares on fallows, 
 and also on all wet and deep soils, which, it is well 
 known, they constantly avoid when they can. When 
 left to choose their own track, they always take a dry 
 one for treading on ; and it is plain, that their woolly 
 sacks admirably adapt their feet to resist the ill effects 
 
124 HAEE SHOOTING. 
 
 of pressure from the rough surfaces they must pass 
 over by this preference. 
 
 The common hare, according to the Levitical 
 law, was classed among the ruminant animals ; zoo- 
 logists, however, give it a place among the rodentia, 
 or gnawing animals. But even at this present time 
 some naturalists favour the former notion, and in- 
 stance the singular contraction in the stomach of the 
 hare as being akin to the stomachic cavities observable 
 in the true ruminantia. The cleft of the upper lip, 
 also, which renders the member so extremely mobile, 
 and capable of the constant quivering motion observ- 
 able, strengthens the opinion of these writers. The 
 jaws of the hare, nevertheless, remain stationary, 
 while rumination is brought about by a grinding 
 action ; the hare moves its jaws only when browsing, 
 and the excessive mobility of the nose seems rather 
 to affect the marvellous delicacy of its olfactory 
 powers, than the qualities of the ruminant. This 
 creature possesses " six prismatic grinders in the 
 upper, and five in the lower, jaw ; the upper jaw has 
 likewise subsidiary incisors." 
 
 If we examine both the eyes and the ears of the 
 hare, we shall be at once struck by their adaptation, as 
 we have before observed, to the purposes of its exist- 
 ence and of flight from danger. Its eyes are promi- 
 nent, the balls half out of the head, and so placed, that 
 without any alteration of position, the circle of vision 
 is remarkably large; commanding an extensive field 
 of view, before and behind. That she cannot see at 
 
HAKE SHOOTING. 125 
 
 once in both directions, is often the cause of her 
 capture. Her ears can be thrown back to the very 
 base, at will; thus enabling her to drink in, as it 
 were, the very faintest sound of pursuit. The eyelids 
 of the hare seem to be seldom or never used, as she 
 does not possess "the accessoiy organ or nictating 
 membrane ; " her eyes are always unveiled, even in 
 sleep, like those of fishes. The tail, or seat of the 
 hare, is black, and white on the under part, short, 
 and in the male usually whitest, a fact which gives 
 the sportsman a clue to the sex of his game. " The 
 anatomy of the ear favours its acceptation of sounds 
 generally, but particularly for receiving such as come 
 from behind." Thus the hare lays one ear forward 
 and one behind, hearing, it is said, more perfectly 
 the sounds that issue from her back than those that 
 are straight-forward. The auditive canal is partly 
 bony and partly soft; " and when the skull of a hare 
 is placed horizontally before a spectator, the long 
 portion of it is seen to protrude itself nearly half an 
 inch with a backward inclination." It is believed 
 that the age of the hare is from nine or ten to twelve 
 years : it is like the rabbit, of extreme fruitfulness. 
 Hares have enemies so numberless, that were it not 
 for their prolific generations they would soon become 
 extinct. The hare know r s the female by the scent, 
 its organs of every sense being exquisitely sensi- 
 tive. When the female is about eleven months old, 
 she begins to breed, and is believed to bring forth 
 young several times in the course of the year : the 
 
 K2 
 
126 HARE SHOOTING. 
 
 gestating term is the same as in the rabbit thirty- 
 one days. The young are fed by the mother about a 
 month, or not quite so long. Her fecundity is pro- 
 digious. One writer mentioning, that " a brace of 
 hares (the doe being pregnant when shut up) were 
 enclosed in a large walled garden, and proper plants 
 supplied for their subsistence. At the expiration of 
 twelve months the garden was examined, and the 
 produce was fifty-seven hares. On the manor of Sir 
 Thomas Gooch, also, there were six thousand hares 
 killed in 1806." At Fonthill, during its occupation 
 by the eccentric Mr. Beckford, hares swarmed to 
 such an extent, and had become so tame, in conse- 
 quence of their never being molested under any 
 circumstances whatever, that they might be seen 
 parading the alleys and green avenues of the park, 
 in files, as the Guards march the streets of 
 London . 
 
 The hare is nocturnal in her habits : upon 
 her return from her rambles, she retires to her 
 form, where she squats under cover of brushwood, 
 a hedge, or whatever else may contribute to her 
 concealment; not that she appears to have any 
 notion of the sort, for she sits as open on her 
 form as is well possible. The neutral colours of 
 her fur much more assist her ambush than any 
 apparent care of her own. Many diseases, to which 
 hares are subjected, are known. They become drop- 
 sical with too succulent food. Their fore-teeth occa- 
 sionally grow out when kept in places where they 
 
HAKE SHOOTING. 127 
 
 have no wood to gnaw. In the same manner, we 
 find that bears, and other savage animals, are subject 
 to the protrusion of horny parts ; such as the inordi- 
 nate growth of their claw r s, as well as their teeth or 
 fangs. To secure hare warrens from the enemies 
 such as stoats, weasels, ferrets, polecats, badgers, 
 foxes, &c. of these defenceless animals, they should 
 be walled round. Mr. Beckford's (the sporting 
 writer's, not the anti-sporting preserver's) directions 
 for a hare warren are these : A wood of nearly thirty 
 acres, cut into many w r alks, set with traps, and 
 sown with parsley, which will induce the hare to 
 keep at home. A small warren should have but 
 one walk in it : and no dog be permitted to enter it. 
 When, as the seasons close, the hares become shy of 
 the traps from having often been caught, it will be 
 necessary to drive them in with spaniels, &c. The 
 geographical range of the hare is great ; its varieties, 
 in consequence, are numerous : the Alpine hare ; the 
 Baikal hare ; the changing hare, that of Brazil ; the 
 Cape; of North America; are among them, the 
 minute hare of Chili being the most diminutive, and 
 said to be little bigger than the mole ; it is reported 
 to be fine eating, and is called by the Chilians, " cuy." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 RABBIT SHOOTING. 
 
 THIS sport, like, indeed, all others, is differently 
 practised in different places, and by different persons. 
 The best sample of it we ever enjoyed was in the 
 woods belonging to the Earl of Winterton, adjoining 
 his seat, Shillinglee Park, in Sussex. This nobleman 
 keeps the most perfect pack of rabbit beagles pro- 
 bably in existence, and goes out with them quite en 
 prince. Having caused the covers he purposes shoot- 
 ing to be stopped (after the fashion of fox-hunting), 
 he sallies forth with his Lilliputian pack, cheers them 
 into cover, turns them with his horn, and, in short, 
 carries on his rabbiting with all the pomp and circum- 
 stance of perfect woodcraft. His hounds are about 
 the size of well-grown kittens, and as full of fire 
 as lucifer matches. Their cry is " as tunable as 
 lark," and quite as shrill, being the completest canine 
 counter-tenor that may be conceived. This is shoot- 
 ing the rabbit in such a style as ought to recon- 
 
'/' 
 
BABBIT SHOOTING. 129 
 
 cile the defunct to his fate : but it 's not every- 
 where the coney is demolished as at Shillinglee. 
 
 All kinds of rabbits, tame or mid, are in best 
 flavour from November till the commencement of 
 February. Some naturalists contend that they prefer a 
 seat above ground, and only burrow for the sake of 
 refuge, in case they are in danger. This may be 
 partly true ; as, also, that they use their burrows as 
 shelter from inclement weather. Even the hare will 
 burrow under the snow, when it lies deeply. It is 
 certain, that where they enjoy quiet and privacy, they 
 are constantly to be seen above the surface, even 
 though that be a warren. In their miscellaneous 
 resorts, they select, as places to lie in, thick hedgerows ; 
 particularly those having furze or fern growing on 
 their banks, and old, dry stone, or sand, pits, whose 
 sides are overgrown with bramble and scrubby un- 
 derwood. 
 
 Early morning, and after sunset, are the most es- 
 teemed periods of the day for this sport. Still, the best 
 way of setting about it must depend on local and other 
 circumstances. If the place, in which you pursue it, 
 be of some extent, by going round it, walking slowly 
 and noiselessly, and sometimes creeping, you may get 
 more shots than by any other means. If, on the 
 other hand, your range is limited, and the rabbits 
 have been much disturbed, your plan must be to con- 
 ceal yourself till a chance offers : do not then fire 
 too often from the same spot. Where the ground is 
 undulating, by keeping under cover of the brows of 
 
130 BABBIT SHOOTING. 
 
 the hills, rabbits may be approached. In this case 
 lie down, and make a rest for your gun. Then push it 
 gently forward, close to the ground, without exposing 
 yourself, until you feel that it is sufficiently far 
 advanced for the stock to fit your shoulder. Then 
 raising your head, without your hat, endeavour to 
 pick out a double shot, if possible. If the ground be 
 a level, without ambush of any kind, you may make 
 one with hurdles twined with furze bushes, or other 
 bushes, with which the rabbits are familiar. The 
 subjoined rules for this sport are abbreviated from 
 an authority already quoted : 
 
 Avoid walking over the burrows, when you can 
 do so : being connected with each other, not only is 
 the ground thereby shaken, but the sound is conveyed 
 to a greater distance than would be easily credited. 
 Being quick of hearing, rabbits will not stir if they 
 suspect an enemy is nigh. 
 
 As their sense of smelling is even more acute 
 than that of hearing, never attempt to approach them 
 with your back to the wind. 
 
 The moment you have fired at a rabbit with a 
 single gun, if he be not quite dead, run up to him ; 
 for rabbits are exceedingly tenacious of life, and how- 
 ever severely wounded, will instinctively scramble 
 into a burrow, if possible. But as it will often 
 happen that a long arm and a screw-ramrod will 
 recover them, whenever rabbits are supposed to be 
 hit, the burrow they take should be always examined 
 at the least, if not probed in this way. 
 
BABBIT SHOOTING. I'M 
 
 A small, quick, mute retriever, that will crouch 
 close to you, and only stir at your bidding, will save 
 you the trouble of the run, cause less disturbance, 
 and will often recover a wounded rabbit which you 
 would have chased in vain. 
 
 When shooting in woods, at all times be extremely 
 cautious when and where you fire : let no shot, how 
 ever tempting, induce you to do so unless you are sure 
 neither man or dog be within range at the time. 
 
 Rabbits, in some neighbourhoods, are shot from 
 trees. This is said to be the poachers' way of doing 
 business ; but, though we say it under the rose, a 
 good many wholesome sporting hints may be had 
 from that fraternity. Moreover, with the exception 
 of the style of rabbit shooting spoken of in the outset 
 of this chapter, it is for the most part a secret, 
 solitary amusement more akin to angling than the 
 spirit stirring business of the trigger. 
 
THE FEUKET. 
 
 THE FERRET.-FERRETING. 
 
 THE Ferret has just so much to do with our ordi- 
 nary sporting recreations, as to entitle it, or rather 
 its uses, to a place in this volume ; and, grace to 
 modern improvement, its application is not the bar- 
 barous contrivance it was in times gone by. The 
 practice of "coping," or muzzling, this lithesome 
 little creature, is scarcely ever had recourse to now : 
 the horrid custom of sewing up its mouth is utterly 
 abandoned. Indeed, if left unconstrained, it is found 
 to bolt the rabbit with far more spirit. A cord is 
 occasionally made fast to its neck; and by means 
 of knots marked on it, as on sea lead-lines, it is 
 
THE FEKBET. 133 
 
 known how far he has run. This, however, should 
 be carefully handled, where any danger exists of its 
 becoming entangled with the roots of trees, or any 
 other substances of a like kind. Ferreting should 
 not be begun earlier than October, as the young- 
 rabbits are not till then strong or resolute enough to 
 break ground freely. The ferret should be earthed 
 to windward ; and the person in charge of him 
 should be perfectly silent. The shooter should so 
 place himself, as to have the whole of the burrows, 
 or as much of them as possible, within command of 
 his eye and his gun. He will find it add much to 
 his sport to have some one in attendance with a 
 reserve gun, who will also load as fast as he fires. 
 The subjoined hints on ferreting were furnished to a 
 friend of ours, by a practical hand of the craft in 
 Essex : 
 
 " The small polecat ferret is decidedly the most 
 active, eager, and best. The ferret should be handled 
 frequently when young, that it may be quite familiar 
 to the touch, otherwise it becomes shy after it has 
 been used a few times, and is very troublesome to 
 catch towards evening, or when the least tired. It 
 should never be fed for eight or ten hours at least, 
 before hunting. Young rats, birds, or rabbits' 
 entrails, are at all times good food for the ferret, 
 and are to be recommended when they can be pro- 
 cured. The ferret may be used any time during the 
 day till four o'clock, except in the depth of winter, 
 when it is advisable never to hunt it after three 
 
134 THE FEEKET, 
 
 o'clock. Always handle a ferret gently, and place 
 your hands under its arms. Be very careful never to 
 snap at it when taking it out of a rabbit hole, or to a 
 certainty your fingers will suffer, 
 
 "When shooting, a ferret should not be 'coped/ 
 unless it is a very fast hunter, or a sure killer. A 
 small bell, tied round the neck, will be found useful, 
 and in a large burrow very advantageous. If a ferret 
 is a killer, it is a good plan to blunt the long teeth, 
 which will enable the rabbit to free himself from his 
 antagonist. Never turn a ferret, if shy, too often, 
 into the same earth, for, if tired, he is apt to lie up. 
 A predisposition to do so is sometimes indicated 
 (after a ferret is blooded), by its running continually 
 to the mouths of the holes, by a playfulness, and by 
 scratching. When this is the case, remove him 
 immediately. 
 
 " A box, about four feet long, is the best habitation 
 for ferrets, having an open front, made of iron. 
 Great care should be taken to keep them quite clean, 
 and to give them plenty of air, as they are, when 
 young particularly, subject to many complaints. 
 
 " In some of the southern counties, but more espe- 
 cially in Essex, rabbits, whether from the nature of 
 the soil, as some persons suppose it is matter of 
 great doubt remain obstinately sulky for three- 
 fourths of the year, and cannot be induced to move, 
 even with a coped ferret ; and will rather have their 
 skins stripped from their backs than bolt, although 
 the greatest caution be used not to shake the earth 
 
THE FERRET. 135 
 
 or make the least noise. In Essex, rabbits bolt well 
 only during the months of October, November, arid 
 December." 
 
 The routine of ferret economy, here laid down, 
 savours very strongly of the experience of one who 
 used the net rather than the gun as his engine of 
 destruction against the coney. Shooting, in places 
 where rabbits live, for the most part, under ground, 
 is the slowest of slow sport: ferreting to nets is 
 butchery, as relates to the smaller animals. To put 
 the hand into a contrivance such as they boil cab- 
 bages in, and squeeze to death a soft, inoffensive 
 little animal, such as one might imagine a kitten in 
 paradise to be, is certainly not a recreation worthy a 
 true knight. Rabbit shooting, where it may be had as 
 a wild sport, even if unaccompanied with the quick dash 
 and excitement, for which it is distinguished under its 
 most favourable aspect, is at all events divested of the 
 fire -side flavour of grimalkinism : is very neat practice 
 for the young shooter, and certainly not beneath the 
 dignity of his ambition. But if got up in a warren 
 for sixpence a blaze, offal in, with a kill (the warrener 
 always stipulates for the skin), there is something in 
 it singularly infra dig. A gun is neither a conve- 
 nient nor a fitting agent in a warren, nor rabbit 
 shooting the sport of a gentleman anywhere, save in 
 wild woodlands, or such rural districts as disencumber 
 it of all apropos of onion sauce. 
 
THE RABBIT. 
 
 THE RABBIT.-THE OLDEN BRITISH RABBIT 
 OF ENGLISH AUTHORS. 
 
 RABBIT fanciers specify four kinds, or varieties, of 
 the common rabbit : warreners, parkers, hedgehogs, 
 and sweethearts ; but the endless diversities, known 
 to those who take an interest in these busy little 
 animals, would fill a volume to describe. The 
 greatest variety is found in the domesticated rabbit, 
 or sweetheart. It is of this kind from which is 
 fattened the prize, or monster rabbit, that has been 
 known to exceed fifteen pounds in weight, on sin- 
 gular occasions ; and which often weighs ten pounds. 
 
THE BABBIT. 137 
 
 Of the warrener we have seen the largest specimens 
 in the Isle of Wight, where, in the lonely districts 
 around Alum Bay and Freshwater, these creatures 
 appear to enjoy an Eden of their own : their innu- 
 merable little heads and ears peeping forth from the 
 close, swart herbage, as thickly as kingcups in a 
 June meadow. The parker, as its name intimates, 
 frequents parky uplands and open enclosures ; the 
 hedgehog kind, like the hare, will take shelter under 
 the hedge-bushes, or short woods and plantations ; 
 and these two sorts make no burrow subterraneously, 
 but breed in the most convenient places of their 
 chosen locality. 
 
 Some ancient authors have deemed the hare and 
 rabbit but varieties of one species, an error quickly 
 discovered by modern naturalists. In no instance 
 has a hybrid been discovered to breed : although a 
 variety of the rabbit has occurred, which at first led 
 some to suppose that it was a breed between both 
 animals. The similarities of structure are certainly 
 great; but the dissimilarities are equally so. The 
 variety we speak of was large, of the hare colour ; 
 bony and lengthy ; the flesh, also, was high-flavoured, 
 without the usual rabbit insipidity ; and it was said 
 to be, for we speak not after our own knowledge, 
 equal, or superior, to that of the leveret. 
 
 The counties of England, in which the rabbit 
 is most plentiful, are. Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Nor- 
 folk, and Lincolnshire, with the Isle of Wight; 
 sandy soils, it will be seen, are most favourable to 
 
138 THE BABBIT. 
 
 its burrowing habits. But when we speak of num- 
 bers, our mind naturally reverts to Spain, the native 
 'country of the rabbit, where its habits are as pecu 
 liar as its flesh. Without speaking of the prodi- 
 gious quantity of rabbits killed under the denomination 
 of bunnies, it is not exaggeration to describe most of 
 the provinces of the kingdom as swarming with them. 
 The Balearic Islands are celebrated for the number 
 of rabbits they contain. In colder climates they are 
 kept within doors, somewhat like our pet lap-ears. 
 The islands above mentioned were once as infested 
 with these animals, as some German districts 
 have been with the great water-rat ; and in the 
 time of the Romans, they petitioned the emperor for 
 the means of extirpating them. In these hot cli- 
 mates they are unclean animals, their flesh becoming 
 so rank and tainted as to preclude its use as an 
 article of food. We need say nothing more of the 
 fecundity of an animal so well known, than that it 
 will breed six or seven times in the year, and produce 
 four or five young at each -successive breeding. This 
 amazing increase would truly soon over-populate the 
 district, but that, in the wise ordinations of Provi- 
 dence, the rabbit is usually molested by enemies that 
 almost equal its ratio of propagation. When this is 
 not the case, it is found to do but comparatively little 
 injury : and in poor countries, becomes invaluable 
 as an article of food for the lower orders. When 
 this animal lives above ground, its fur becomes more 
 hairy. Lepus cuniculus, Linnceus 
 

THE POINTER. 
 
 THE Pointer (Canis avicularis, Linn.) is of several 
 types, as the English, Spanish, Kussian, and a small 
 species, called the French pointer. The best sort, 
 however, by many degrees, is the English ; his 
 lineage being by no means indigenous to this coun- 
 try, but coming of various experimental and scientific 
 crosses. Some of our best pointers have been bred 
 from the Spanish race and the British fox-hound. 
 We have little opinion of the Eussian pointer, though 
 the setters of that breed are excellent ; and still less 
 value for the French animal, so called. Whatever 
 its origin, the smooth English pointer is certainly 
 the most generally useful of all the species of dogs 
 used for finding, and stopping to, game. Once made, 
 his education is completed for life ; while the setter 
 requires breaking, more or less, at the commence- 
 ment of every season. When age, indeed, has taken 
 all fire and all pace out of the setter, he will be 
 found steady enough ; but so he would if he were 
 dead: and when the dash has left a sporting dog, 
 the sooner his breath follows it the better. As the 
 young shooter can hardly be expected to breed his 
 own dogs for the gun, we will afford him the counsel 
 of an old gamekeeper in the choice of them : always 
 entreating him to bear in mind, that the sharpest 
 practitioner, or thereabouts, under the sun, is the 
 dog fancier, or merchant. 
 
In selecting a pointer, before you test his quality 
 or his teaching, see that he has an open muzzle ; that 
 
THE POINTER. 141 
 
 he is flew-jawed, or short-headed. His eyes should 
 be full, his poll rising to a point ; his ears long and 
 well hung ; that is, falling between his neck and 
 jaws. His neck and head must be set on straight, 
 so that, when he points, his nose may turn up rather, 
 than otherwise. Let his shoulders be deep, and well 
 let down ; and his elbows well in. He should have 
 large straight legs ; small feet, a little pointed, stand- 
 ing fair, and the balls small and open. His withers 
 should be narrow, his back slightly curved, his loins 
 broad. He should be deep in the fillets and gaskins ; 
 short from the hock to the postern joint ; with flat 
 sides ; fine, marked veins ; his croup straight ; and 
 a fine stern, or tail, set on high, and straight. 
 
 Having chosen a dog according to these sugges- 
 tions, take him into the field, and observe how he 
 behaves. Mark if he be a gallant beater : ranging 
 high, going within himself, his head well up, and to 
 the wind, as endeavouring to catch a flying scent; 
 making his casts, turns, and offers, dashingly ; neither 
 hanging on the haunt, nor puzzling for a ground 
 scent. See that he quarters his ground regularly 
 and independently of any other dog hunting in com- 
 pany, without leaving the corners of his fields un- 
 tried. He must neither skulk, shirk, break-field, 
 follow, watch, blink, nor point at sight. He shall 
 not be hard nosed, nor near scented, but wind his 
 birds at long distances ; keep his point stanchly ; 
 back without jealousy ; crouch to bird, dog, or gun, 
 at a signal from the hand, or the word " To-ho ! " 
 
14'2 THE POINTER. 
 
 without caprice, or standing when you call. If he 
 chap his point, it is a good symptom ; if he mouth 
 and hug his game, it shews he relishes his business. 
 If a pointer has not been well trained, when he 
 comes upon the haunt, or run of birds, he will dash, 
 flourish, jump, run at shot, and the like. These, 
 however, are merely the effects of high courage, and 
 may be cured by work and good teaching. 
 
 Never beat a dog after he has done wrong, but as 
 nearly in the act as possible. When you punish, 
 have him upon a training-cord, and do not loose him 
 till he has become reconciled to you. Should you 
 let him go before, he will very likely skulk ; coil the 
 line round your hand, and keep him at heel for some 
 time, and give him his liberty by degrees. If you 
 observe any signs of skulking, fasten the line to a 
 stake, and leave him behind you for a field or two. 
 Then return, and if he seems cheerful, give him a 
 piece of buiscuit, and caress him. Let him then off, 
 but still fast to the cord ; as soon as he beats freely, 
 you may remove it altogether. When dogs are 
 callous to the whip, holding them up by a cord, with 
 a slip-noose, till they become alarmed, will often 
 succeed ; use the whip at the same time. 
 
 There are some dogs of such very timid disposi- 
 tions, that they will not bear any punishment. These 
 must be made to punish themselves, by means of 
 check-collars and cross-puzzles. Not knowing, in 
 this case, whence the chastisement comes, they do 
 not take offence from, or dislike to, those with whom 
 
THE POINTER. 143 
 
 they are hunting. Animals of all sorts are wonder- 
 fully quick in comprehending signals : witness the 
 learned pigs, and so forth, that perform such in- 
 credible feats, as telling the hour by a watch, and 
 the like ; which is done by their observing signals 
 from the showman, that none of the audience can 
 detect, In like manner, dogs come to read aright 
 every expression of their master's face ; but not till 
 they have long experience of it. Have patience, then, 
 with your team of pointers, and you will be repaid 
 with interest, They will not understand your looks 
 by intuition ; nor probably till they have seen the 
 frown repeated a hundred times, with which you 
 greeted them, when they soiled your first pair of 
 white trowsers by leaping on them. 
 
CHAPTER XtF, 
 
 PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 THIS volume professes to treat of the various descrip- 
 tions of shooting, which offer themselves to the notice, 
 and for the adoption, of the young amateur of the 
 trigger. For this reason, although we hold the prac- 
 tice of trap-shooting at the dove tribe as far from a 
 sporting exploit, it must be allowed a place in the 
 present chapter. We have in no part of this work 
 entered upon the question of the comparative cruelty 
 of rural sports, because the theory of the lawfulness 
 of man's treatment of the lower animals would be 
 involved in it ; a subject too subtle for philosophy, 
 and far too grave for flippant casuistry. 
 
 Tame pigeon shooting is, in point of fact, but one 
 of the many forms of gambling ; it is never, pro- 
 bably, attempted, except to decide a wager, or to 
 bring off a sweepstakes. Colonel Hawker says of 
 the practice, " It is simply this if you miss, you 
 are disgraced ; and if you kill, you get no credit." A 
 
PIGEON SHOOTING. 145 
 
 crack hand at this household species of gunnery 
 may be the worst of general sportsmen ; though it 
 must be admitted he will be a good marksman. 
 The first fashionable place of resort for pigeon- 
 matches was the Old Hats; a public-house on the 
 Uxbridge road, that took its name from the shoot- 
 ing carried on in the grounds attached to it, where 
 the pigeon was placed in a hole covered with an old 
 hat, which constituted the original, or primitive, trap. 
 Of late years, the Red House, at Battersea, has su- 
 perseded the Old Hats, and is now the great metro- 
 politan mart for wager- shooting at pigeons. 
 
 The ordinary distance at which the shooter stands 
 from the trap, is one-and- twenty yards ; the bounds 
 within which the pigeon must fall, to score, vary from 
 a circumference of sixty to one hundred yards from 
 the trap, as a centre. This trap is a shallow box, 
 twelve inches long, and eight or ten wide ; sunk into 
 the ground, so as to be level with it. To this is 
 affixed a sliding lid, with a string to it, held by a 
 person standing near to the shooter. From him he 
 takes his directions to draw back the lid when his 
 aim is taken ; and at the moment that he is shooting, 
 another bird is placed in the trap by the purveyor 
 of pigeons. Thus the match goes on with astonish- 
 ing rapidity birds and guns being furnished even 
 with more expedition than they can be used. As a 
 rule, the pigeon-match shooter should use more 
 powder and less shot than in ordinary sporting. 
 The larger the gun and the charge, the wider the 
 
146 PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 range of the shot. Gun-locks for these matches 
 should have fine, quick action, and very powerful 
 springs. The most killing shot will be found No. 4. 
 
 So much for the tame shooting of pigeons ; now 
 for the fashion of the wild sport. As with the whole 
 species of wild birds, this sport is not a pursuit, but 
 an ambush. You must wait for wild fowl, and not 
 follow them. 
 
 The true season for woodpigeon shooting is mid- 
 winter, when the snow lies on the ground. Then 
 they resort to the turnip-fields, and may be turned to 
 good account. Should it be frost, and you cannot 
 approach them, even under cover of a hedge, in con- 
 sequence of the noise made by the ice breaking as 
 you walk, you will do well to lie in wait for their 
 return from feeding of course, to leeward of their 
 flight. The favourite food of the woodpigeon in 
 cover, is beech-mast; it will, therefore, be most 
 frequently met with where beech trees abound. 
 Having taken your station in the vicinity of them, 
 be in no hurry to fire till your bird has settled on 
 his perch, and taken his preliminary survey. Be 
 but patient till he has done this, and he may be shot 
 at as easily as a barn-door fowl ; but if you move the 
 least before he has settled, he will be off like a 
 rocket. 
 
 In September, Captain Lacy says, whilst the 
 leaves are yet green, the cushat, or woodpigeon, is 
 very fond of perching in hedge-rows, particularly of 
 oak and ash ; but when the leaves fall, they confine 
 
PIGEON SHOOTING. 147 
 
 themselves more to the hollies, and such trees as are 
 mantled with the creeping ivy (for the timid ring- 
 dove ever courts concealment), and where it is next 
 to impossible to spy it out. As it is then certain to 
 fly out the wrong side, if left to itself, the best way is, 
 having first stationed yourself at a favourable point, 
 to whistle to your attendant, who must then face you, 
 and throw a clod, or stick, into the tree. 
 
 Autumn is certainly the season, in a gastrono- 
 mical point of view, for circumventing the wood- 
 pigeon ; for then, from the nature of its food, its 
 flavour is far more delicious than at any other time. 
 This is a migratory bird, and far less plentiful than 
 it \vas, like all of its tribe. It, however, leaves us in 
 the winter, and returns, to breed and rear its young, 
 in the spring. Mr. Blaine speaks favourably, as, 
 indeed, do all having experience of it, of the excellent 
 eating it is, except when it feeds on turnips, and be- 
 comes somewhat rancid of taste. By filling its inside 
 with bread, he says, much of this disagreeable flavour 
 is got rid of. Moreover, he enumerates among the 
 many virtues of the cushat, the property it has of 
 assisting the gamekeeper in his duty. Where they 
 exist in any quantity, he states, that the cabal they 
 make at night when unwelcome visitors intrude into 
 their woody haunts, prevents poachers from using 
 their air-guns, the instruments they usually employ 
 for the destruction of pheasants, on windy nights, 
 when there is strong moonlight. Need we here 
 make intercession for the turtle-dove ? No sports- 
 
148 
 
 PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 man, of any age, sure, would go about to do it 
 violence ; its injury, to the youthful disciple of wood- 
 craft, should seem as murder 
 
 . " Murder most foul, as in the best it is ; 
 
 But this most foul, strange, and unnatural." 
 
 Let the fate of the "Ancient Mariner" warn him w r ho 
 would draw trigger on the hird of love ; ere you fire 
 upon the turtle, think, oh think ! of him who shot 
 the albatross ! 
 
 THE WOODPIQEON. 
 
 The Woodpigeon (Colwnba palumbus, Linn.). 
 Woodpigeon, or Ringdove, of British authors ; the 
 Quest, or Cushat (provincial). This beautiful bird, 
 
PIGEON SHOOTING. 149 
 
 whose exterior plumage is of a bluish grey tint, 
 shading into darker and diverse hues, like a quaker's 
 rohe, enlivened hy the more mundane colours chosen 
 by a lady of quality to set off its sobriety, is indi- 
 genous to our islands. It is remarkable for the 
 downy softness and exquisite shading of its breast- 
 feathers, as well as for its graceful form. It is found 
 in wooded districts of England, in the southern 
 and midland counties of Scotland, and in Ireland. 
 The shyness of the bird is extreme before pairing, 
 after which it becomes almost sociable, resorting to 
 young plantations and shrubberies in great numbers, 
 where it may be observed mightily busy, engaged in 
 the different duties of incubation. As the food of 
 woodpigeons is very various, so the depredations they 
 commit on the green crops of the husbandman are 
 very extensive. They delight in grain and pulse ; 
 they eat the roots of several grasses, one of which, 
 Potentilla anserina, is picked up on the fallows. The 
 turnip crop of the farmer has frequently been well 
 nigh destroyed by them ; they attack beech-masts in 
 quantities, and reject few means of distending their 
 capacious craws. The wild note of the cushat is the 
 harbinger of mild weather, and forms, as it were, 
 the indigenous melody of our groves. It is not easily 
 domesticated, and requires infinite attention to rear. 
 A pair in the Zoological Gardens built a nest, which 
 happened to be destroyed ; and they have been found 
 to breed in the aviary at Knowsley ; but it would 
 possibly require the passage of generations to enable 
 
 M 2 
 
150 PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 them to forget their independence. The wing 
 feathers of pigeons, which are very strong, cause 
 that flapping and tumultuous noise so often heard 
 in our forests, and so often the cause of their dis- 
 covery. They are very gregarious, and retire, in 
 large flocks, at times, to a common roosting place. 
 
 The name ringdove has been bestowed on the 
 bird from the conspicuous marking of dullish white 
 that intervenes, in the neck, between the rich green 
 and purple rays of the neck and breast ; the webs of 
 these feathers are there unconnected. 
 
 Generic character : bill of medium strength, cen- 
 treiorly deflected; maxilla with a slight angle; 
 nostrils nearly linear, widest anteriorly, and covered 
 with a soft protuberant cartilage ; tarsi short, partly 
 feathered in front ; toes entirely divided, hind toe of 
 considerable length ; wings powerful, rather pointed, 
 second quill longest. 
 
 Types : C. paluinbus, troiads, &c. Cosmopolite. 
 
 Note. Breed on trees ; gregarious in winter ; 
 incessorial, but breed with facility. 
 
 The Rock-pigeon is a variety to which our 
 ornithologists refer the domestic pigeon of our cotes. 
 The "blue-rock" is the decoy of the pigeon-shooter 
 of the present day. This species inhabits the hollow 
 caves and bare rocks of the sea-shore. In the winter 
 they feed on the grains and seeds of the region, 
 and on the land mollusca. They are gregarious, 
 and adhere pretty closely to the coast, where their 
 murmuring notes may be frequently distinguished 
 
PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 151 
 
 between the dashings of the wave, and the roarings of 
 the blast. The rock-dove is found on all the desolate 
 shores of the north of Scotland, and the rocks and 
 
 THE IJIAJE HOCK 
 
 caverns of Orkney and Shetland are the breeding 
 and roosting resorts of innumerable birds of this 
 species. Selby mentions, that they are found in the 
 cliffy regions of Caldy Island, in South Wales ; and 
 they are said to breed on some parts of the Devon- 
 shire and Cornwall shores. 
 
 Of the woodpigeon generally we may say, that 
 the species has greatly decreased of late years, both 
 
152 PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 with the increase of population and the increasing per- 
 secution to which they are subjected. Not a third of the 
 numbers, that formerly flocked our woods and forests, 
 are now seen. But incalculable as their aggregate 
 amount seemed to be with us some sixty years since, 
 it is small, indeed, to that spoken of in America, 
 the passenger pigeon of that country darkening the 
 air for miles, when the flocks are on the wing ; and 
 when they settle, breaking down, from their num- 
 bers, the very forests on which they rest. The Rock- 
 dove, or White-rumped pigeon, is the staple that has 
 supplied so much theme for the poet and the histo- 
 rian, as the messenger of the lover and the politician. 
 The " Tumbler" and the "Carrier" pigeons are two of 
 the fancy breeds of this species, remarkable for a 
 deviation of structure from the original type. Their 
 heads and bills are in proportion, the former shorter, 
 and the latter longer, than in their original. 
 
 The Turtle-dove (Turtur migratorius). This 
 pigeon is smaller and more slender than the true 
 pigeon, and its tail is not nearly so ample, but gra- 
 duated. It occurs in Kent and Hertfordshire, in 
 some of the northern counties, and in Scotland and 
 Ireland : it appears to be more frequent in the 
 wooded parts of Kent than elsewhere in England, 
 but its visitation with us is altogether rare. Sir W. 
 Jardine speaks of a specimen shot in the garden at 
 Jardine Hall : " The bird had frequented a break 
 of peas, nearly ripe, for several days, and at last 
 attracted the notice of the gardener, as one not pre- 
 
PIGEON SHOOTING. 153 
 
 viously known to him. When it was afterwards 
 sought for it was discovered in the same place, rose 
 with considerable noise, and alighted on a neighbour- 
 ing tree, whence it was shot. The plumage was that 
 of an immature bird." Thus we see it is only a 
 straggler that occasionally exceeds the ordinary bounds 
 of its migrations. It is, however, regular in its visits, 
 reaching the British coast between the end of April 
 and the commencement of May; again to depart in 
 the latter days of August, or early in September. 
 The fidelity of these birds is said to be as singular 
 as the attachment of the Carrier pigeon to its native 
 locality. The flight of the whole pigeon family is won- 
 derfully rapid. 
 
 
 THE STOCKDOVE. 
 
 The Stockdove. This species seems almost con- 
 fined to some of the southern shires of England 
 
154 PIGEON SHOOTING. 
 
 (speaking of it only as a British bird). It is found 
 in the open parts of Norfolk and Suffolk, where it 
 sometimes constructs its nests in rabbit holes and 
 burrows: elsewhere it will seek for pollards and 
 decayed trees wherein to breed ; and sometimes it is 
 found in the entangled furze-bushes that are weather- 
 tight. It is known to mix with the woodpigeon ; it 
 is also gregarious at the same season, and its food is 
 alike. The young stockdove is very good eating, but 
 not comparable to the flesh of the ringdove when it 
 has abstained from the turnip or cabbage field. The 
 plumage of this species is remarkable for the sort of 
 mineral lustre of its breast feathers. In conclusion, 
 we may remark, that the woodpigeon is distributed 
 over our islands ; that the stockdove selects the 
 southern districts, and the rock-pigeon is most nu- 
 merous towards the north. 
 
 In Jamaica, there are many varieties of this tribe : 
 some of whom have great beauty of plumage, as 
 the Blue pigeon and Mountain witch ; and others, as 
 the Ring-tail pigeon, extraordinary delicacy of flavour. 
 The latter is found only in the woods of Jamaica 
 interior, and when in season, in the autumnal months, 
 is extremely fat, and of most exalted savour. Of the 
 doves, too, there is one species, called the Ground dove, 
 from its frequenting the roads and pathways for food, 
 the size of a lark, and of most delicate plumage. We 
 doubt, however, whether in delicacy of plumage any of 
 the dove species excels our cushat, that favourite of 
 our woods, where she threads her leafy way, or sits 
 
TEKRIEES. 155 
 
 crooning in loving note on the darksome tree, im- 
 pervious to every eye. For vividness of colours the 
 palm must, in most cases, be conceded to the smaller 
 birds of the American woods : 
 
 " Just as fond Nature lovelier colours brings 
 To deck the insect's than the eagle's wings.' 
 
 TERRIERS. 
 
 ALTHOUGH his sporting claims are by no means of a 
 prominent character, the terrier is entitled to a slight 
 notice, at all events, seeing that he is an occasional 
 agent of the shooter, and does him good service, in- 
 directly, on occasion. He may be very usefully 
 employed by those who follow rabbit shooting in 
 cover, for his perseverance is indomitable ; and, when 
 of the rough or wiry-haired species, thorns and bram- 
 bles have no account with him. The family of the 
 terrier is the most domestic of all the canine race, 
 and one that has lately made, and is still making, 
 great progress in the higher branches of science 
 known to its genus. The species called bull-terrier 
 is capable of training to almost any purpose for which 
 the dog is required. We have already shewn that 
 one of that breed was of extraordinary excellence as a 
 
retriever ; while many of the common 
 smooth sort, that accompany the itine- 
 rant showman of our fairs, exhibit rare 
 intelligence. As a companion to the 
 wonderful feats related of the poodle, 
 we offer the following instance of saga- 
 city, or second sight, or whatever it 
 was, in a terrier; which, should the 
 reader say he would not have believed 
 had he seen, we can only say we did see, and did 
 not know whether to credit what we saw or not. 
 
TEKRIEKS. 157 
 
 A Frenchman, who resided in the town of Oswes- 
 try, had a little black and tan terrier, that he had 
 taught to dance (of course) ; to smoke a pipe ; to make 
 a low bow on the mention of Napoleon ; and to cut a 
 caper of admiration at the words, "Jeune France." This 
 animal would fetch and carry anything, anywhere. 
 Only point to a wig that passed you in the street, 
 and it was in your hand the next moment ; and as 
 for picking pockets, handkerchiefs seemed to jump 
 
 spontaneously into his mouth It so 
 
 happened that on a market-day we were walking 
 with the Frenchman and his dog, on the road lead- 
 ing to Llangollen. It was summer weather, and 
 the dust lay very thick. We had walked about a 
 mile out, and were returning into the town, when sud- 
 denly he stopped, and said, " At the point where we 
 turned to come back, I dropped a franc among the 
 dust; we will wait till Moustache fetches it Allez, 
 Moustache, cherchez" and off went the four-footed 
 Mercury. An hour elapsed, and no Moustache 
 appeared, and we grew tired of waiting; and the 
 Frenchman, thinking he had lost his cur as well as 
 his coin, returned disconsolate to his lodging. 
 
 The following morning we had occasion to see 
 him early, and while in his room, there was a 
 scratching at the door. He opened it, and, sorely 
 travel- worn, in rushed Moustache, with an old leathern 
 bag in his mouth, which, together with some bank 
 notes and other money, contained a franc piece. This 
 bag was subsequently claimed by a Welsh drover, who, 
 
158 TEKRLEKS. 
 
 in riding to Llangollen fair, picked up a silver coin 
 that his pony kicked out of the dust. This he had put 
 into his bag ; and it was not till long after he missed 
 it, he remembered that, while transacting his busi- 
 ness in the fair, a strange dog had stuck closely to 
 his heels, and followed him to his bedroom, when he 
 retired for the night. What occasion Moustache had 
 taken for abstracting his bag, or by what necromancy 
 of nose he knew it contained his master's money, was 
 alike mysterious ; all that ever transpired was, that 
 the drover had his treasure, and the reader has the 
 tale, to deal with it according to his pleasure. 
 
 The latest fashion introduced in terriers is the 
 variety known as the Isle of Skye breed. Its pecu- 
 liarities are, eyes covered with impenetrable curtains 
 of hair which hang over them, and a back that, if 
 cut into quarters, would be enough for four terriers 
 of ordinary symmetry. The direct origin of the 
 terrier, according to Elaine (who of course follows 
 somebody else), like that of many other well marked 
 varieties of the dog, is involved in much obscurity. 
 Some consider his antiquity questionable ; while, on 
 the other hand, it is not easy to mistake the dog so 
 minutely described by Oppian, for any other than the 
 terrier. Buffon's synopsis classes him with the 
 hound, nor is it at all improbable that he is thus 
 derived; and that, by frequent intermixtures and 
 crossings, he at length exhibits all the varieties we 
 now meet with as to size, colour, and qualities. Our 
 friend, Colonel Hamilton Smith, places the terrier 
 
TERRIERS. 159 
 
 at the head of the race of our dogs ; at the same time 
 asserting, that if there be an indigenous canine genus 
 in Great Britain, it is that to which he belongs. Nor 
 is the arrangement, of so placing the race, to be re" 
 jected, he says, because we are accustomed to con- 
 sider that appellation as applicable only to mongrels. 
 He then goes on to establish his position, by learned 
 references to Greek words ; and having done so, 
 states, that among them the curs are constantly 
 found individuals endowed with the keenest faculties 
 and discernment. One of them, related in Mon- 
 taigne's Essays the quaint old essayist himself 
 having witnessed the fact was the guide of a blind 
 man, who, when his road lay along a brook, would 
 draw his master to the farther side from the water's 
 edge, although it was there much more rugged and 
 unfit to walk on. This was veiy intellectual, but not 
 equal to our own sample. 
 
CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 HERE is, indeed, a stirring subject the pursuit of 
 at once the daintiest and most sporting of all our 
 feathered quarry. Elsewhere we shall deal, at some 
 length, with its natural history and social details 
 here we confine ourselves to the most approved 
 methods of finding and bagging this manna and fat- 
 ness of the woods. These savoury strangers the 
 woodcocks wherever they come from, arrive gene- 
 rally in the British Islands about the middle of 
 October. They then lodge principally abroad ; but 
 the first fall of snow drives them into the woods, and 
 in November they are to be met with in cover, what- 
 ever the nature of the weather. 
 
 In covers not too high or thick, or where rides 
 have been cut through the well-grown timber, cock- 
 shooting with a team of small spaniels or cockers, is 
 the most picturesque and inspiriting of all trigger- 
 sporting. The precaution of having markers eligibly 
 
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 161 
 
 posted before beating a cover is begun, is very es- 
 sential ; for when a cock is flushed, he should never 
 be left, if possible, while in the land of the living. 
 The most favourite spots, both in and out of cover, 
 with the woodcock, are clumps of hollies. There 
 or thereabouts, you may be sure of him, if the beat 
 has not lately been disturbed. Early in the season, 
 however, his creeps are among the hedgerows, on the 
 margin of ponds, in springy, marshy bottoms, and 
 subsequently in young woods, and the skirts of plan- 
 tations. At times, he is very sluggish, and will lie till 
 the very bush he is in is struck ; at other times, he 
 is as much on the alert. Sometimes, he will not fly 
 a hundred yards after being fired at, and will afford 
 half-a-dozen shots, should he survive long enough ; 
 then again he is on the wing before you are half 
 within range, and do n't alight till he has put miles 
 between himself and you, To-day he flies straight 
 and slow, so that it is hard to miss him ; to-morrow 
 his flight is twisted like a corkscrew, and rapid as a 
 falcon's stoop. 
 
 Colonel Hawker, who has bestowed upon this 
 sport the name of " the foxhunting of shooting," is 
 extremely concise in his remarks upon it. He says, 
 indeed, that a real good sportsman feels more gratified 
 by killing a woodcock, or even a few snipes, than 
 bags full of game, that have been reared upon his own 
 or neighbour's estate ; but he dismisses very abruptly 
 the means of so gratifying himself. In a country where 
 cocks are scarce, he tells you to be sure to put a 
 
 N 2 
 
162 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 marker in a tree, before you attempt to flush one a 
 second time ; and, when you have marked down a cock, 
 to remember, how very apt he is to run instead of 
 rising from the spot in which you may have seen him 
 drop. If a cock flies away, he observes, and continues 
 to rise wild, you may go safely beyond where he may 
 have last dropped, and then back again to beat for him 
 (having some one to make a noise on the side where 
 you had before advanced on him) ; and he will then 
 most likely either lie close, or fly towards you. If this 
 will not do, take your station quietly to windward (as 
 cocks generally fly against the wind), give a whistle 
 when you are ready, and let the other person then 
 draw on and flush him. His cry of "mark" will 
 assist in frightening and driving the cock forward, 
 and be a signal for your preparation. 
 
 Infinitely the best cock-shooting we have ever 
 had, was in Ireland on the coast of Donegal and 
 Leitrim. In the neighbourhood of Ballyshannon, 
 these counties unite, and there, in the woods of 
 Oakfield, belonging to a connexion of our own, we 
 . have met woodcocks in flocks or " wisps," an occur- 
 rence without parallel in our sporting career. The 
 manner of pursuing them is by two-legged beaters, a 
 company of boys, or gossoons, as natural and naked as 
 any four-footed cockers, and going to work with a zeal 
 and instinct that would shame the best bred spaniels 
 of Blenheim, or anywhere else. These " spalpeens " 
 are as well broken to the sport as any crack train of 
 dogs, and take a delight in it that shews they are to 
 
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 163 
 
 the matter born. Indeed, a love of sport is the 
 ruling passion of the Irish peasant strong, even in 
 
 his starvation, God help him ! The gossoons, 
 
 having taken in hand their shillelaghs, proceed in line 
 through the woods, giving tongue, when they flush a 
 cock, with "Mark cock," and waiting breathlessly 
 for the sound of his funeral oration. If no shot is 
 fired, or, if fired, a cry of " Down dead " does not 
 follow the report, they resume their beating, as before. 
 In these woods, their late proprietor has shot fifty and 
 sixty couples frequently in a day ; and the late Duke 
 of Richmond, we believe, when Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, received a pie as a present which contained 
 twenty score of woodcocks ! 
 
 We have no right to suppose our young friends 
 will ever set up their (cocking) staff in this land of 
 promise, and therefore it is our duty to instruct them 
 how to hope for a supply of this their game in less 
 densely inhabited neighbourhoods. When in places 
 likely to hold a cock, let them towards evening try 
 the mosses, banks of rivulets, and boggy bottoms ; at 
 that time the birds are on the "road," or feed, and 
 consequently, are more easily met with than when 
 laid up in the snug harbour of some old osier bed, or 
 beneath the root of some monarch of the wood in the 
 deepest recesses of some wide cover. When flushed, 
 he will do well to bear in mind that the woodcock 
 seldom, if ever, pitches on feeding ground. 
 
 The Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola). The wood- 
 cock is the largest species in the genus Scolopacidff, 
 
164 
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 or, familiarly speaking, in that family of snipes and 
 woodcocks common to our British marshes and 
 woodland covers. These birds are winter visitants of 
 
 THE WOODCOCK. 
 
 our coasts, and their migration is nocturnal. Upon 
 their first arrival they are to be found in whin covers 
 on the sea shore, or on heathy moors. When ex- 
 hausted by the length of their flight, they are some- 
 times so little shy, that they can hardly be raised, and 
 may be killed in great numbers, while more fre- 
 quently they are timid to excess. They will, per- 
 haps, rest a day or so in the localities we have men- 
 tioned, ani*then are off to settle, as it were, for the 
 winter. They will then choose far-spreading woods, 
 interspersed with holly, spruce, and other evergreens, 
 
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 165 
 
 and where there is low cover to be met with near 
 marshy and sheltered bottoms. They visit us for 
 the most part about the end of October, and migrate 
 again in February. Numerous instances of their 
 breeding have been made known, season after season, 
 in this country; but still the cases when this occurs 
 are isolated : a pair or two, here and there, discover 
 a favourable situation, and are found; but there 
 is no indiscriminate breeding in chosen places, as 
 in the case of its near neighbour, the Jack Snipe. 
 The woodcock appears to be known in all parts of the 
 world. We have it in most parts of Great Britain 
 and Ireland that are suited to its existence : it is 
 found in Orkney and Shetland for a short space of 
 the winter. It breeds in Austria, Silesia, and even 
 in Siberia; and its range extends beyond the Arctic 
 Circle. They have been found in Italy and the East, 
 at Madeira, and 011 the African coasts. With some 
 varieties of plumage, they are to be met with amid 
 the Himalayas, and in the Alpine districts of India 
 generally, as well as at Japan. 
 
 The woodcock, when it breeds in this country, 
 selects a dry spot, generally at a small distance from 
 water : here dry leaves, a little fern, perchance some 
 moss, may form its careless nest : and here the hen 
 will lay four or five eggs of the size of those of a 
 pigeon; in colour of a pale purple brown, or dirty 
 yellow white, with brown markings. One writer 
 speaks thus of nests that were found : " the soil was 
 dry and gravelly, the grass tolerably long, without 
 
1 .M 
 
 UUtionVOod, Miil ihe h'OOS oak. lurch, and larch, ii. ( 
 <'\ V('Jni'> ihiru \ear.' "j'oNNth \noiher says; (lint 
 
 " tll( y V HIV placed amongst dead -MM'.-. .111.1 I. 1 IV OS, \N M 1 1 
 
 iiompt at concealment." In Norway, tho 
 found inerelx placed on ill. 1 IMIV ;M\)iiihl, 
 
 uiuiiM' lM'ush>Yi>o(l, or \\linv ilu' youni^ spniro in was 
 'I'viin springing iVoni ;i -.p;uv ^\\\\ jn-.i rlt^inul of tho 
 "11 (roos Tlu^ most ronwrluiMo |xvulitin(v \n (ho 
 fonuution of tho woodcock, is tho stnicturo oi it < lull 
 
 ni.MMiros uluMH thri-c iuolios, :md is I'niTONYoii tunivly 
 it-; \\lioh' liMi-Mli, hji'iiillv roinjMTssrd, Mild rurvtul at 
 ilit' tip. \\liit'!i iM'ojtM'ts, iind forms M Kind ol knob, 
 which ' vtM'N n>i,i\> , and ctipublo ol >li - runuiatiou 
 .'f !(> foid ^priuoipalh worms), \vliioli n i^\(racls from 
 moist Around-. l>v means of its sharp and poiutoil 
 tongue. Tho bill is iutoixtn'tod l'\ nuni( v rous voilis, 
 Tlh 1 ovt^ is lar**o, and so t'onstnicttul us to catch ili v 
 tamtr ' li-dit, a uoc < '. > .n\ . since n is a noi 
 
 turnal wamltM'or. Tlu^ di^'ostion of woodcocks is 
 singularly nipid, and their feeding piopcn -n ic -. ,|int- 
 
 oui (>t' proportion \\iih otluM' hii',1 . llie\ tlinisl l.luMI' 
 hill-;, ondoucd. a-- \\ c ha\t > soon, \\iih a wonderful 
 dolicacv t>f i\H'lin into me soft nuul of tho uiar-di or 
 shore, in -.(Mii'h ot the a|iiaiic l.n\.\ v .M insocts and 
 small wiu'ms ; and thus they here imcoasm^lv during 
 ihe 'M.Mit'-.i pan >t the m^hl lv>r lht N l\uil, that i - > no 
 soonor taken than it i-> in process of di;e-,u.Mi Tho 
 woodcock inotisiuvs alunn fourtotMi inrhos m leniMh. 
 
WOOIU'Ol U SHOOTINti 107 
 
 al'onl l\\onl\ M\ in hroadth. and \\oiojis Iroin mno to 
 oloxon omu'os Tho plmnajjo is oolomvd m :ill (In-, 
 .vnus \\illi Mihdnod and o,nakor hko lints. TheSO 
 in thoir inrn \ar\in, from ;i hriok dnM li;;hl hro\vn 
 to a son of \ollo\\i i \\lnoh last Inio iho fore 
 
 hoad Mssimilaio. \.io >\vn .m.l \\i\\w tht>n> 
 
 aro four hars of Mark l>i'o\\n. t>f a nrh t'olour. ihr l\\ 
 lii'si iho nio-,1 inarkt-J ; a narrow l:ml >f vtll>\\ i --li or 
 roil.lisli \\lu((> srpjn-Mtos llioin on iho loro |>arl of iho 
 nook, and iVoin iho oornors, tluM'o nro palcli 
 Sionna hroun. of a j>alo oolonr Tho WlQgfl .n- 
 darkish hroun. \\ilh hlark inhnni\-d, inul \\lnto. or 
 palo vollo\>. li|>>, inarlv.-.l I nan;Mil,irl\ out-.id(> \\ilh 
 (li.'.nni ItroNvn, on iho innor sido \\ith a son >t icd 
 IM-ONMI; iho oulor \\<-h of ilu- lirsi <|inll i - n-.nall\ iho 
 j>;do--i lo a faini yollow, \\lnlo iho dark cokuil'-. 
 
 nrr (ho fcritngttto SpotH upon H Tho i.nl has i\\ol\o 
 I'^atluM'-. . ti i hlaok, i-nl into \\iih hro\\n. ih. 1 ii||or 
 lip- ^rov, iho undoi- \\lnlo- a roKlor hue on iho 
 hiva-.l, and inack^d \\iih hro\\n of \ai 10UI ha.l.-, in 
 \anous hirds. Tho hack is an adnnxlmv of hroun, 
 volloNv, and !, \ \\iih dark.-r inaikni",^ f hro\\n and 
 hlaok ; iho \vholo |lnniaj-o of a li^'hl sand lro\\n 
 olVocl. \\ilh sliadin ; v> "' Jji'^.v Mini darkor hrouns an. I 
 hlaok Tho lo;';> and haso of iho lull aro |>alo hr.>\\n 
 ish pink: al lln- h|> of iho lull i( horonir - noarl\ 
 hl.iok. This hird siilVors r,o\orolv in llu- hard frosls 
 of Iho \\mhT, from its potadiar haluls of inrnin|> 
 o\or iho sand and driod UMIVOS in soaivh >f l''*l. In 
 I In -, OOUUtry, lh' v nmnhor of WQOdOOOkl kno\\n lo \ isil 
 
168 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 us, of late seasons, is on the decline. In Ireland they 
 are very abundant, the boggy districts and natural 
 copse-woods, of certain of its counties, absolutely 
 swarming with them. There is much animal oil in 
 woodcocks ; and their time of incubation is short : the 
 young birds run alone as soon as out of the shell . It is 
 said, that, in common with their tribe, they are quarrel- 
 some during the season of courtship. Blaine men- 
 tions, that the sex of the woodcock is undiscoverable 
 from external marks ; although in Pennant we find, 
 that the hen of the woodcock " presents a narrow 
 stripe of white along the lower part of the exterior 
 veil of the feather, while in the cock bird, the same 
 feather at the same part is beautifully and regularly 
 spotted with black and reddish- white." We are not 
 ourself a competent judge, not having a taste in 
 feathers, but have no doubt that Blaine is right in 
 his experience, that the distinction is not, in many 
 birds, clearly marked. Some say the hen is the 
 larger bird. The small, pointed feather, at the base 
 of the bastard wing of this bird, is well known among 
 artists as the most delicate brush used by them, 
 especially in miniature painting. It is now greatly 
 superseded by brushes almost as finely haired, manu- 
 factured by the brushmakers. The woodcock, on its 
 first arrival, is usually lean and fatigued : it is often 
 picked up, under such circumstances, in the most 
 open thoroughfares near sea-coasts, and is so difficult 
 to raise, at such times, that it is killed in numbers. 
 Mr. Daniel tells us " that when the cocks first take 
 
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 169 
 
 to the coverts, which they sometimes do in flights or 
 numbers, they choose the year-old slopes, or they 
 betake themselves to the edges of the woods ; after- 
 wards they lie up in ordinary, as it were, in coverts 
 of from seven to ten years' growth." 
 
 The woodcock is often supposed to make a flight 
 to Ireland from our shores, in seasons of severe frost, 
 the prevailing moisture of that clime being genial to 
 the conformation of the bird. It is well known they 
 leave us in numbers when a long, hard frost may have 
 prevailed. It seems to be an axiom in nature, 
 that the voracious animal is a solitary one. The 
 beasts of prey, for the most part, roam singly the 
 pathless wilderness in quest of victims; the carni- 
 vorous birds, who make their eyries on the moun- 
 tain-top, live and pair singly ; the huge monsters of 
 the deep, who feast on carrion, approve of no compe- 
 tition in blood; and thus, too, these smaller birds 
 and animals, who are greedy, or rapid of digestion, 
 appear averse to flocking together. This holds good 
 of the species we are describing ; and, indeed, it is a 
 fact, that one plashy brake, such as the bird loves, 
 will not contain more food than will support one of 
 these birds. Colonel Montague says : " The enor- 
 mous quantity these birds eat is scarcely credible : 
 indeed, it would be the constant labour of one person 
 to procure food (worms or the larvoe of insects) for 
 
 two or three woodcocks The difficulty 
 
 of collecting a sufficiency of such precarious aliment 
 determined us to try if bread and milk would not be 
 
170 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 a good substitute ; and we found that, by putting 
 clean-washed worms into the mess, the bird soon 
 acquired a taste for this new food, and will now eat a 
 basin of bread and milk in twenty-four hours, besides 
 the worms it can procure." 
 
 Woodcocks are seldom seen to fly in the day- 
 time, they do not like stormy weather, and shift their 
 quarters very much according to the climate. Thus 
 they breed on the mountain-heights of Jura, and 
 remain among the Alps throughout the year, visiting 
 ,the moist places of the vallies according to the season : 
 in the summer amid the hills ; in the winter descend- 
 ing to the plains. They breed also in the mountains 
 of Sweden, Poland, Prussia, Norway, and Lapland ; 
 indeed, everywhere that Nature teaches them their 
 delicately nerved bills can pick from the marshes 
 and plashes the necessary supply of food. Here 
 they remain until the sun and the frost, alike their 
 enemies, shall have dried up the springs and water- 
 courses ; till the ground shall have become too arid 
 for their support ; till the vermicular insects are 
 upon the wing ; or till the frost shall have congealed 
 the earth into one solid mass, impenetrable to their 
 bills. When this occurs, these cold-loving birds must 
 either wing their flight to other regions, or perish. 
 
 It is said, that the arrival of the woodcock is more 
 or less influenced by certain winds blowing from 
 their locations : these are taken advantage of as they 
 occur ; thus sparing them that fatigue the conforma- 
 tion of their wings, though large, does not enable 
 
WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 171 
 
 them to support. Numbers, nevertheless, perish at 
 sea; numbers are picked up dead on the coast; num- 
 bers alight on vessels during the passage. 
 
 Varieties occur in this bird. Dr. Latham speci- 
 fies three : " In the first, the head is of a pale red, 
 body white, and the wings brown ; the second is of a 
 dun, or rather cream colour ; and the third of a pure 
 white." One writer describes having met with a 
 variety, the colour of which was a fine pale ash, with 
 frequent bars of a veiy delicate rufous ; tail brown, 
 tipped with white ; arid the bill and legs flesh colour. 
 Mr. Daniel speaks of the different sizes of woodcocks : 
 that those found first in the season are the largest, 
 fly heavily, and their heads, especially the under 
 parts, appear to be encircled with short feathers ; 
 that these large birds are not so numerous with 
 us as a smaller size, which arrive in November and 
 December, with shorter bills and smoother feathers. 
 " Woodcocks that come about Candlemas," he says, 
 " are also small, and differ in their manner of flying; 
 are quicker of wing, take long flights, and are well 
 known to be difficult to be shot, from their not rising 
 above the spray, like the larger muffled woodcock, 
 but make their way for some distance, as it were, 
 among the boughs." Baillon mentions a grey-legged 
 woodcock, and a blue-legged one ; a pure white bird 
 has been seen. We find, indeed, that varieties of 
 climate among animals, of whatever class, generate, 
 almost invariably, varieties of plumage. 
 
 Generic characters, according to Jardine : bill 
 
173 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 lengthened and sensitive, straight (upper mandible 
 eurvod, and projecting over into a knob in the wood- 
 cock), basally compressed, slightly curved at the tip, 
 and there dilated; the tip of the rnaxilla fitting into 
 that of tin* mandible in the whole tribe ; legs and feet 
 slim: tarsi of moderate length: tibia- onlv for a short 
 space naked, or altogether clothed with feathers ; 
 wings moderate, tips of the quills somewhat rounded. 
 but the first or second longest. 
 
 Tvpes: Scolojmj' nitticold. (jallina<jo, Snbinii, iv.e. 
 Habits of several, to a limited extent, sylvan; all 
 migratory, or partially so ; squat on the approach of 
 danger. Breeding and winter plumage similar. 
 

CHAPTER XIV, 
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 LIKE the woodcock, the Snipe is a migratory bird, 
 also ; visiting us in autumn, and taking its leave in 
 spring. Like the woodcock, too, it abounds infinitely 
 more in Ireland than England : and, indeed, in many 
 districts of the former, is the only bird the shooter has 
 to count upon, with the exception of the grouse and 
 the cock. The snipe, according to the old saw, " is 
 a good bird whenever you can get it ; " but it is not 
 correct, nevertheless, to shoot it before the grouse is 
 in season. In August a few are met on the moors 
 they are always to be found in the bogs and on the 
 upland moors of Ireland ; but they are not fit to eat 
 before November. It is stated, and truly, that these 
 birds have retreated in this country before the march 
 of agricultural improvement, whose premier pas is 
 draining ; and the sport, which forms our present 
 subject, is to be had, in any perfection, in but very 
 few counties in England. Moreover, the snipe is 
 
174 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 a most capricious resident, changing his abode at 
 almost every accident of wind or weather, or both. 
 Sometimes not one solitary individual is to be met 
 with in their most accustomed haunts ; sometimes a 
 sportsman falls in with a colony, where he never 
 before knew an individual of the species to resort. 
 
 Many good game-shots contend, that shooting 
 snipes is a " knack" (which, no doubt, they them- 
 selves have not learned) ; and, certainly, some emi- 
 nent hands, at pheasants and partridges, give it up in 
 disgust, and despair of ever succeeding at it. Taken 
 in all its bearings, this sport is a very true general 
 test of a marksman's quality. The flight of the bird 
 is utterly altered by the state of the weather. In 
 warm, cloudy, or boisterous days, he is as tame, and 
 as easily covered, as a young grouse in August ; the 
 next morning, with a brisk hoar-frost, and a still, 
 clear atmosphere, he flashes away like a bolt from a 
 cross-bow gyrating like a swallow in the twilight. 
 
 An old stanch pointer, familiar with the scent of 
 the snipe, is the only dog to shoot him to with any 
 satisfaction. This dog should be taught to retrieve 
 also, for in some grounds which the bird likes best to 
 frequent, it is not competent for " too, too solid flesh" 
 to venture. " Snipes," says Captain Lacy, whom 
 we hold in esteem as an authority on the subject of 
 shooting birds which are not game, " snipes lie best 
 in windy weather, when the shooter should always be 
 down wind, as the birds, when sprung, generally face 
 it, and thus present finer, and often cross, shots. 
 
SNIPE SHOOTING, 175 
 
 But in boisterous weather, though their flight he 
 slower, it is more irregular, and, therefore, the aim is 
 more difficult to take. Some recommend hunting up 
 wind, and heading the dog wide at a point, instead of 
 walking up in the usual way. But the birds rarely 
 allow of such a liberty being taken with them, to say 
 nothing of fresh birds being thus disturbed. With a 
 scientific snipe dog that is, one who, on your walk- 
 ing down wind, quarters his ground regularly before 
 you, with his nose in the wind, making short turns 
 from right to left, at thirty or forty yards on each side 
 of you there is no plan like walking with the wind. 
 But with a dog not so highly accomplished, I always 
 prefer taking the contrary direction ; but then I use 
 Eley's cartridge, No. 7." 
 
 As the flight of snipes is so rapid, and, at the same 
 time, often so tortuous, if the shooter mean to get 
 doublets, he must fire the first barrel extremely quick, 
 unless, indeed, the birds lie unusually well ; but, at a 
 single bird, he can, if he please, afford himself a little 
 more time, unless it rises wild. The critical crisis at 
 which you should, in this latter instance, endeavour 
 to fire, is just when the bird is reaching that distance 
 when the shot will have the widest spread, consistent 
 with the proper degree of closeness for pelting down 
 a bird so small as a snipe. This will, of course, vary 
 exceedingly according as you may use loose shot or 
 cartridges. 
 
 The vulgar notion, that the slightest touch of 
 shot will bring down the snipe, is wholly untrue. 
 
176 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 It lias often been seen to fly beyond sight after more 
 than one pellet has passed through it, If you have 
 reason to suppose you have hit your bird, and it is 
 marked down, beat very close for it ; you may very 
 probably find it dead, though it has fled from the shot 
 apparently as strong as ever. Try your snipe ground 
 very patiently, and don't be afraid to beat it after 
 noon, though you may have tried it blank in the 
 morning : snipes often return as regularly as they 
 leave their feeding places. Neither must you take it 
 for granted they feed in spots apparently suited to 
 that purpose. Constantly, haunts, the most favour- 
 able for them to the eye, do not hold a snipe ; very 
 probably there is something disagreeing with their 
 taste, for your snipe is formed by nature for an 
 epicure his bill is exquisitely fashioned to give him 
 a keen perception of flavour. 
 
 In weather when snipes rise wild, as soon as 
 they flush, throw your eye well forward, and fire the 
 moment they top the cover in which you raise them ; 
 observing to suit your elevation to the distance. A 
 wild springing snipe, like a pigeon from a trap, 
 always takes a straight course in the first of his 
 flight. If he offers an oblique, or a cross, shot, you 
 must regulate your aim accordingly, and shoot well 
 forward. 
 
 The Common Snipe (Scolopax gallinago, Linn.). 
 The plumage of the common British snipe of English 
 authors is of very sober tinting, and yet so distinctly 
 marked as to be very beautiful. The upper ground- 
 
SNIPE SHOOTINO. 
 
 177 
 
 colour is a dark brown black, the feathers being re- 
 lieved by a lighter brown, so arranged in parts as to 
 fall in lines. There are two broad lines, on the 
 
 THE SNIPE. 
 
 crown and over the eyes, of pale colours ; while from 
 the gape to the eye there is an uninterrupted line of 
 blackish brown. The back of the neck is of varied 
 and irregular colour and markings. The back, 
 scapulars, and long tartials have feathers edged with 
 a border of light brown, falling in lines. At the 
 back there is much black, while the feathers are 
 tipped with white. The breast is dark wood brown, 
 shading into white, as they advance lower on the 
 breast and belly. The chin is white ; the throat 
 brown. There are fourteen tail feathers : the middle 
 two are black, largely dipped in bright yellow red, 
 
178 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 and sometimes mottled with, black ; a deep and nar- 
 row band crosses the tip. The exteriors of the tail 
 are greyish black, and a reddish orange, shaded by the 
 dark ground colour of the feathers ; the outer feather 
 is white at the tip. 
 
 This bird is common all over Great Britain and 
 Ireland. It breeds with us in partial numbers, and 
 regularly; but by far the greater quantity arrive in 
 this country with other early winter visitants, again to 
 migrate towards the spring. Formerly, these birds 
 were most abundant in Cambridgeshire, and would 
 sell from fourpence each ; of late years they are in- 
 finitely more plentiful towards the north ; yet wher- 
 ever the surface character of our counties permit their 
 resort, there will the snipe be found. Of course, as 
 we advance northward, among moors and marshes, 
 we shall find them increase in plenty, even to the 
 western isles of Scotland, and to the remotest of them. 
 They appear to breed in every suitable locality of 
 North Britain and Ireland. In the breeding season 
 they locate themselves on the edges of marshy grounds ; 
 or, should these be too swampy and extensive for their 
 purposes, they resort to the lowland moors, or to the 
 shores of the northern lakes. The ground nest is 
 merely a scooped-out cavity, lined with such materials 
 as are at hand : the position, a dry tuft, on raised 
 ground. In the southern districts, the fenny grounds 
 of commons, or the low moist grounds in forest tracks, 
 are selected. The young remain long after incuba- 
 tion, and as long as the weather permits, near their 
 
SNIPE SHOOTING. 179 
 
 breeding places; but, under unfavourable seasonal 
 circumstances, they will speedily change their quarters. 
 The frost of very severe weather, however, will some- 
 times keep them from removal till it is broken up 
 again. We have known snipes where you would 
 little calculate upon them, in low willow grounds t 
 among alders and scattered brushwood ; and we have 
 seen them perch close to the habitations of man, in 
 bound up weather, in search of that moisture necessary 
 to their existence. The loud drumming noise of the 
 common snipe, heard in his descending flight, made 
 by the concussion of its wings with the air, was at 
 one time thought to come from his throat. Its pipe, 
 as it sits among the herbage, is well known to the 
 moor and marsh frequenter, and even to the mere 
 woodland frequenter ; for it is often popped upon in 
 localities but little suited to its ordinary habits. Its 
 geographical range is undetermined. Jardine says it 
 breeds in Scona and Lapland; Mr. Yarrell, in ex- 
 tensive swamps and morasses in the alpine districts 
 of Norway and Sweden ; Pennant ascribes Russia 
 and Siberia as breeding countries ; and the east is 
 given it by various authorities, while others restrict it 
 to Europe. Jardine says, "the birds of America are 
 distinct." 
 
 The Common Snipe is provincially called the snite, 
 or heather-bleater. Its length is about, or near, 
 twelve inches ; the bill a good three inches : it weighs 
 about four ounces. The snipe has many enemies; 
 among them, the most destructive is, perhaps, the 
 
180 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 blue hawk. This bird, in running, has a peculiar 
 motion, or jerk, with the tail, which it outspreads at 
 the time in a fan-like manner. Its flight is rapid, 
 but tortuous. It is thin in August, and not then 
 very good eating ; about November it is as full and 
 fat as the epicure can desire. It is not a shy bird, 
 except where it congregates together, when it becomes 
 much more wary and timid. There are often-occur- 
 ring varieties of this, as well as all the other species 
 of the feathered tribes. There is the Ked-breasted 
 Snipe (Scolopax novaborencis) :' "In 1803, a small 
 flock of these was seen in Devonshire." Bewick 
 speaks of a singular field snipe, that was shot near 
 Offord : " Its throat, breast, back, and wings, were 
 beautifully covered or streaked with white ; and on 
 its forehead was a star of the natural colour : it had 
 also a ring round the neck and tail, with the tips of 
 the wings of the same colour." We have ourselves 
 seen an odd brick or orange legged snipe. The Red- 
 breasted Snipe is indifferently named by British 
 authors, the Brown Longbeak, Brown Snipe, Red- 
 breasted Snipe, Grey Snipe, from the varieties of its 
 winter and summer plumage : it is of the genus 
 Macrorhampus. and not one of the true snipes; is 
 known as far north as the Arctic Sea, and is speci- 
 fically a native of North America. 
 
 The Great Snipe (Scolopax major). In the 
 southern districts of our island we find this snipe as 
 an occasional bird of passage. It is of unusual occur- 
 rence both in Ireland and Scotland. Jardine men- 
 
SNIPE SHOOTING. 181 
 
 tions the fact, that the great snipe is nearly always 
 met with in autumn, comparatively few being found 
 in the spring, or on their re-migration. 
 
 This is the Great Double, or Solitary Snipe, of 
 British authors ; so named from its habits of skulking 
 alone or in pairs. Its flight is heavy and peculiar, 
 and its tail spread out fan-like. Its plumage is very 
 similar to that of the common snipe, with some differ- 
 ences : it has sixteen tail feathers, the five outermost 
 beautifully-marked, black bars on white, and triangular 
 markings on belly, sides, and thighs. From the tip 
 of the bill to the toes, it might measure rather more 
 than fourteen inches ; its weight about eight ounces ; 
 bill about four inches long. The internal structure 
 of the great snipe is said to be remarkably similar to 
 that of the woodcock. The bird has been not unfre- 
 quently met with in Kent, and in various parts of 
 Lancashire. Its most usual breeding continental 
 range appears to be Norway and Sweden, and in 
 Holland more rarely. 
 
 Jardine specifies, that in comparison with the 
 common snipe, " the bill and legs are short; the 
 tibia bare for only a short distance above the tarsal 
 joint." Bewick mentions three specimens of a large 
 snipe, but which could not clearly be ascertained as 
 " a distinct species, or whether it acquires its bulk 
 and change of plumage from age, and its solitary habits 
 from ceasing to breed." 
 
 There is a species of snipe, infinitely more rare 
 than the solitary heather-bleater ; it appears an 
 
182 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 intermediary between that and the woodcock. The 
 known specimens of this bird in England are few in 
 number : one was procured from Queen's County, 
 Ireland, where it was shot; and another was killed 
 in the neighbourhood of Morpeth, in Northumberland. 
 As we have not ourself examined these specimens, 
 or others, in the Zoological Museum, it will be more 
 satisfactory to the reader to introduce that eminent 
 naturalist, Sir W. Jardine's description of this species : 
 " Scolopax Sabinii : Sabine's Snipe" first premising 
 that its call is described as differing from that of 
 other snipes, and its habits said to be similar. An 
 Irish specimen, produced by Mr. Thompson, was shot 
 at thrice ; without exhibiting fear or shyness, it 
 alighted, after being fired at, but a short distance 
 from the same spot " The upper parts are nearly 
 of a dusky brown, varied by narrow bands of pale 
 yellowish brown; the under parts are also rufous 
 dusky brown, alternately barred with pale yellow 
 brown. The tail, containing twelve feathers, has 
 the basal half black, the terminal half chesnut brown, 
 barred with black or blackish brown. Tibias plumed 
 entirely to the knees. The entire length of the bird 
 is from ten to twelve inches, of which the bill will 
 measure from two to three." 
 
SHOOTING THE JACK SNIPE. 
 
 THIS little specimen of his species, like his great 
 type, the Solitary Snipe, is much more easily shot 
 than the common. It lies closer, flies slower, and 
 presents a much easier mark. Still, inanimate, as it 
 undoubtedly is, as a general rule, the Jack Snipe, 
 
 THE 4ACK SNIPE. 
 
 like the woodcock, after affording, perhaps, half a 
 dozen shots, as if he were but half awake, will take 
 to his wings, and make use of them in good earnest. 
 Moreover, in windy weather he is as wild as the com- 
 mon snipe is tame. When you have flushed, and 
 marked him down, you must take care he does not 
 
184 JACK SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 rise secretly, take a second flight, or a long run, and 
 afterwards get up behind you. The Jack comes to 
 us later, and leaves earlier, than the common snipe, 
 and has rarely been known to breed in this country. 
 Though a short flier, he knows how to take care of 
 himself, and will often set the best dogs and men at 
 defiance. 
 
 The Jack Snipe (Scolopax gallinula): Linn. 
 This is the pet of the snipe genus, both for its 
 plumage and its flesh. As to the latter, let people 
 say what they will of the ortolan, we will back the 
 jack, half-snipe, or judcock, for a tit-bit, against any 
 ortolan in the world. It does not flock together like 
 the common snipe, but chooses in pairs, or singly, 
 its low woodland or marshy abode. If the jack comes 
 to us rather later than the larger snipe, it remains 
 with us longer than others, always staying through 
 March, when its feathers are approaching towards 
 their full beauty. At this time, indeed, it is far the 
 handsomest in dress of any species of the bird, either 
 known in Great Britain or foreign : its glossy back 
 so richly dyed in purples and greens, its delicately 
 distinct markings of wood brown, and the clearest 
 ochreous yellow, and the pure white underneath, 
 which so charmingly contrast these brighter hues, its 
 green grey legs, and dusky bill, and its plump but 
 elegant form, combining to render it one of our 
 prettiest visitants. When five or six are seen toge- 
 ther, they look like animated gems or jewels, as they 
 rise from covert, their wings quivering in rapid, 
 

 JACK SNIPE SHOOTING. 185 
 
 whizzing motion, and glistening with brightness. 
 Although these birds lie close enough, they are far 
 from being shy, but will remain, at times protruding 
 their heads and bills from the ground, as children 
 hide their faces in the mother's lap, when they think 
 to conceal themselves. It is very uncertain whether 
 they breed in these islands, even in solitary instances, 
 for all attempts to find the nest have hitherto signally 
 failed. The bird has been shot during summer, and 
 this is the only datum for the supposition that they 
 do so. Sir W. Jardine says, "In an excursion to 
 Sutherlandshire, some years since, we thought we had 
 found a breeding station for this bird near Tongue. 
 The gamekeeper there, an intelligent man, said, that 
 he frequently met with them, and their young, in 
 August, while shooting ; and every cross-questioning 
 that could be put, would not allow him to think that 
 he was mistaken by the young of the common snipe. 
 He mentioned the breeding-places frequented by 
 them, and which, when visited, were exactly the 
 spots we should have expected, or looked for a 
 'jack.' Our search, however, was fruitless; and, 
 so far as this point is concerned, we have been unable 
 to fill it up in Scotland." 
 
 The " gid," "jetcock," or "judcock," as it is 
 termed provincially, weighs about two ounces ; is from 
 seven and a-half to eight and a-half inches long ; bill, 
 nearly two inches ; the tail cruciform, and consists of 
 twelve feathers, lance-like in shape ; the wings are 
 greyish black, secondaries tipped with white, the 
 
 F '2 
 
186 JACK SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 coverts edged with white, and shot with ochreous, 
 the under parts white ; the flanks tinted with a grey 
 black and brown ; the feet and legs greenish ; and 
 patches, or broad bars, of rich blackish brown about 
 the head, an ochreous yellow separating them. The 
 eggs of the jack snipe are the size of a lark's ; its 
 haunts the same as those of the common snipe. Its 
 geographical range seems to be the mountainous 
 parts of Europe during the process of incubation, and 
 it is a winter visitant in France and central countries. 
 Temminck says, that it breeds in the neighbourhood 
 of Petersburg. Some writers have considered it iden- 
 tical with the Indian species found in the Dukheen. 
 Fermin describes, in his " History of Surinam," a bird 
 he calls the jack snipe, " as seen by thousands on the 
 sea-shore ; that it must be a bad marksman who does 
 not kill sixty at once with fine shot ; and that he killed 
 eighty-five at a single discharge ; that the flesh is 
 excellent, but the bird so small, that he could eat 
 twenty at a meal." From all we know of this bird, 
 it would never be found congregating in numbers 
 according with this description. Blaine says, Fermin 
 has probably mistaken the ox-birds, which fly in vast 
 flocks, for this sportsman's and epicure's delight, 
 This is the Becassine Sourde of French writers. 
 
 
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 
 
 HAVING now brought to a termination our notices of 
 those birds which come properly under the denomina- 
 tion of game, as also our outlines of the natural his- 
 tory and characteristic properties of the dogs used in 
 their pursuit, we will proceed to the second portion of 
 our work ; prefacing it, and closing the first part with 
 a brief sketch of an animal, not absolutely connected 
 with either, but whose eminent sagacity, and peculiar 
 aptitude for the service of man, render him a most 
 useful agent, both to the game and the wild-fowl 
 shooter. 
 
 Of all dogs, take him in the aggregate, the New- 
 foundland (Canis terra nova] is, perhaps, the most 
 generally sagacious. We have found him, beyond others 
 of the sub genus cauls, gentle, teachable, and useful. 
 It is our opinion, that, in most cases, he might 
 be made the most valuable of sporting dogs, his 
 intelligence, or instinct, if such, indeed, it merely 
 be, appearing to be called into action in a greater 
 variety of instances than in any other dog, except 
 the original mountain, or shepherd, dog. As a re- 
 triever, he possesses a quality of unquestionable 
 value, that of mouthing his game without breaking 
 it ; and, as we have before said, he may be brought 
 into the field with pointers, without interfering with 
 their province. As a watch- dog, his fidelity is pro- 
 verbial. We, ourselves, possessed a dog of this species, 
 
SFANIET, AND NEWFOCJ.VDLi.ND DOGS. 
 
 / f that, upon a night attack of burglars, 
 
 broke his chain, scoured through a 
 long yard, in which he was kept, and, taking an 
 enormous leap upwards, caught hold of a fellow by 
 

 THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 189 
 
 the tail of his coat, who was entering the window 
 of a conservatory on the first floor, and brought 
 down the flaps between his teeth. Nor did this 
 trophy content him; for utterly disdaining a bit of 
 poisoned meat thrown at him, he pointed and yelped 
 at the thief, till the alarm was given and the fellow 
 discovered. The same dog permitted a robin, through 
 a whole winter, to take shelter in his den. It was 
 a most singular spectacle to witness; for so much 
 familiarity, and, as it seemed, affection, grew up be- 
 tween them, that, while Robin hopped and chirped 
 about between his shaggy paws, or upon his head 
 and body, our Newfoundland would stand or lie per- 
 fectly still, his small, brown eyes winking and blink- 
 ing, and his well-clothed tail gently wagging to and 
 fro with satisfaction. A feat of this dog deserves com- 
 memoration. A boy, belonging to the house, had not 
 returned home at the usual hour, to the great alarm 
 of his mother. The dog above mentioned, seem- 
 ing to share in the general disturbance, followed the 
 servant, sent in one direction, to seek out the truant ; 
 but soon distanced and lost sight of him, and was the 
 first to discover the boy's apparel on the water's edge, 
 and, a few minutes after, the boy himself in the river, 
 who was then sinking. The noble animal plunged 
 in, and rescued the child, who, it appeared, had run 
 off with his elder brother's corks, and, being of a 
 determined and independent character, had ventured 
 to swim by himself. At the moment of time of the 
 dog's approach, he had got embarrassed and en- 
 
190 THE NEWFOUNDTAND DOG. 
 
 tangled in his machinery, and must certainly have 
 been drowned but for this timely assistance. 
 
 The fine animal, now so common in Britain, is 
 usually a cross between the original Newfoundland or 
 Labrador dog, and others of the canine race ; and is, 
 therefore, found somewhat diversified, both in form and 
 colour. Jardine says, that the hound seems to have 
 crossed in with the present breed ; for, even in New- 
 foundland, some of these dogs are, in size and fulness of 
 body, superior even to the Irish greyhound, although 
 the latter is higher in the shoulder. He speaks of one, 
 that when desired to show himself, would place his fore- 
 paws on the lintels of any door. These large dogs 
 are usually white in colour, with black spots, while 
 the original breed is smaller, and totally black, except 
 portions of the tail and legs ; their muzzle is sharper, 
 the forehead more arched, and their expression 
 wilder ; their bodies, too, are usually more slim ; 
 and the black colour of the head is interrupted by 
 the rust-coloured patches between the nose and the 
 eye. The Labrador dogs are almost semi-palmated, 
 and seem to be as familiar with the water as an otter, 
 swimming, and diving, and keeping in it, with as- 
 tonishing facility. He is very large, rougher-haired 
 than the Newfoundland, and carries his tail high. At 
 St. John's, a dog is reckoned to maintain his master 
 during the winter, drawing sledges, fish, wood, and so 
 forth ; in the summer, they are left, in great numbers, 
 to maintain themselves, and, consequently, not only 
 suffer great privation, but contract various diseases.* 
 
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 191 
 
 This species of dog, although he may he deemed 
 inferior to the shepherd dog in steadiness and stub- 
 bornness of adherence to watching, holds the highest 
 place for intellectual qualities. We know of one 
 whose usual station was the open hall-door of a gen- 
 tleman's country mansion; who appeared to think his 
 peculiar usefulness consisted in guarding the solitary 
 pedestrians of the family. He would view, unmoved, 
 the exit of every party; but a lady, a child, or his 
 master, at all times brought him to his feet, and sent 
 him scampering over the forest or park, by way of 
 pioneer, although but a second returned, perhaps, 
 from, a day's hard work in the woods. So remarkably 
 was this dog affected by individuals, that in despite 
 of his antipathy to beggars, by twos and threes, he 
 was never known to bark at a woman-beggar, but 
 would solicit the attention of his master to her case, 
 in a variety of ways, and always attend her to the 
 lodge-gates on departure. A small, common white 
 owl was the pet of the children ; it used to roost, the 
 day long, under a dark bush, where the trees overhead 
 formed an almost impenetrable shade. Our New- 
 foundland had a particular dislike to the species, but 
 always took great notice of this little creature, who 
 would fasten her big, brown, round eyes upon him 
 with great perturbation ; but he knew perfectly well 
 it was not to be molested, and, on the contrary, would 
 lead the youngest child, who could just run alone, by 
 his gambols, to the dark bush. In Youatt's " Hu- 
 manity of Brutes," he tells us thus : " A vessel was 
 
192 THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 
 
 driven on the beach of Lydd, in Kent : the surf 
 was rolling furiously ; eight poor fellows were crying 
 loudly for he]p, but not a boat could be got off to 
 their assistance. At length a gentleman came on 
 the beach, accompanied by his Newfoundland dog. 
 He directed the attention of the animal to the vessel, 
 and put a short stick to his mouth. The intelligent 
 and courageous fellow at once understood his meaning, 
 and sprang into the sea, and fought his way through 
 the waves. He could not, however, get close enough 
 to the vessel to deliver that with which he was 
 charged; but the crew joyfully made fast a rope to 
 another piece of wood, and threw it towards him. 
 He saw the w r hole business in an instant ; he dropped 
 his own piece, and immediately seized that which had 
 been cast to him, and then, with a degree of strength 
 and determination almost incredible, he dragged it 
 through the surf, and delivered it to his master. A 
 line of communication was thus formed, and every 
 man on board was rescued from a watery grave." 
 
 In truth, the instances of courage and benevo- 
 lence recorded of this species, are so numerous, that 
 they would fill a volume. We may speak of the 
 cleverness of the French poodle, who has been made 
 an excellent actor ; as in the case of the company of 
 poodles brought to London, about fifty years ago, by 
 a Frenchman, that had been educated to play their 
 parts in pantomimic sieges; counterfeit admirably 
 fine ladies and gentlemen ; and dance minuets, bow, 
 and look demure and frisky, according to book. 
 
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 193 
 
 We may remember M. Leonard's pointers, Brague 
 and Philax, who could certainly understand language, 
 and play at dominoes ; and commend Walter Scott's 
 dog, Dandie, who found his boot-jack; and James 
 Hogg's dog, Hector, who overreached his master; and 
 marvel at the poodle who would never permit a false 
 note in singing to pass unobserved by a howl and a 
 growl ; or the shoe-black's mongrel, who brought cus- 
 tomers to his master, by dirtying the boots of the 
 passengers who passed the door of the shop ; but we 
 must still assert, that, in benevolence and sagacity, 
 the dog of the Newfoundland species is superior to 
 any other. A gentleman put a marked shilling under 
 a stone by the roadside, first shewing it to his New- 
 foundland dog. The gentleman then, with his friend, 
 rode forward three miles ; and then the dog received 
 his signal from the master to return back for the 
 shilling. The dog turned back : the gentlemen rode 
 home ; but, to their disappointment and surprise, the 
 hitherto faithful messenger did not return during the 
 day. It appeared he had gone to the spot where the 
 shilling was deposited ; but the stone being too large 
 for his strength to remove, he had stayed howling at 
 the place, till two horsemen riding by, and attracted 
 by his seeming distress, stopped to look at him ; 
 when one of them alighting, removed the stone, and 
 seeing the shilling, put it into his pocket, not con- 
 ceiving it to be the object of the dog's search. The 
 dog followed their horses for twenty miles, remained 
 undisturbed in the room where they supped, followed 
 
194 THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 
 
 the chambermaid into the bedchamber, and secreted 
 himself under one of the beds. The possessor of the 
 shilling hung his trowsers upon a nail by the bedside ; 
 but, when both travellers were asleep, the dog took 
 them in his mouth, and, leaping out of the window, 
 left open on account of the sultry heat, reached his 
 master's home with his prize ; when, from memoranda 
 in the pocket, everything but the shilling was enabled 
 to be returned to the owner, and the singular circum- 
 stance elucidated. 
 
 This anecdote very strongly resembles that before 
 related of the Frenchman's terrier. For this story, 
 we do not personally vouch : the terrier's feat came 
 actually under our own observation. 
 
 The Newfoundland Dog (Canis terrce nova), 
 differs from the Esquimaux race in many respects ; 
 having greater freedom of joint and muscle, being 
 longer in the back, of a more flowing and straighter 
 fur, a thicker muzzle, and more pendent ears. The 
 St. John's breed is preferred by sportsmen, as being 
 the more intelligent, with remarkable powers of scent, 
 and teachable to an almost unlimited extent. The 
 fact of the superiority of the Newfoundland is, we 
 presume, to be traced to their vicinity to the capital 
 of the state; everything animate being found more 
 intelligent and sagacious within a reasonable distance 
 of a metropolis. Elaine mentions, that, some years 
 ago, these dogs could be readily procured at Poole; 
 and, when well broken, were very valuable : that 
 some gentlemen who purchased them, found them so 
 
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 195 
 
 capable of general instruction, that they have given 
 up most other sporting varieties, and contented them- 
 selves with these ; and, indeed, found the places of 
 the others perfectly well filled up. This he supposes 
 to occur, however, principally in fenny and aquatic 
 districts. He speaks of a valuable dog of this sort, 
 the property of a gentleman who resided near New- 
 haven : " Whenever it was likely wild-fowl would 
 come in shore, and that, consequently, gunners would 
 go along the levels to intercept them, then she was 
 sure to be found, waiting for and attending on them 
 as long as they stayed; fetching, either out of the 
 sea or the river, spite of ice or snow, any that were 
 shot. She had been known to stay two entire days 
 and nights, and, as was supposed, without food, wait- 
 ing at the shore-side to assist any shooting parties 
 that might go out ; for, at the time we allude to, an 
 intense frost of two or three weeks, had frozen up 
 every river and stream. Here, indeed, was self- 
 devotion ; and she truly had a sporting mania." 
 
 Colonel Hawker recommends the purchasers of 
 these dogs to buy them ready broken; as, by the 
 time they are trained (by the process of half-starving), 
 the chances are that they will have got over the dis- 
 temper, a disease particularly virulent in the New- 
 foundland kind. He also gives us a hint, of which 
 our own experience has proved the wisdom, never to 
 use violent means to make him do what you want, 
 which will generate sulkiness ; " but to deter him 
 from any fault, you may rate and beat him 
 
196 THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 
 
 The St. John's breed of these dogs, is chiefly used on 
 their native coast by fishermen : their sense of smell- 
 ing is scarcely to be credited." They will scent a 
 wounded pheasant through a whole covert of game, 
 or a pinioned wild-fowl through a furze brake, or 
 warren of rabbits. 
 
 It will, therefore, be seen that we have not placed 
 the biography of this remarkable dog out of place. 
 To the game-shooter, he is capable of rendering the 
 most essential services ; some of the very best re- 
 trievers we have known having directly descended 
 from him ; indeed, a friend of ours had a pure New- 
 foundland bitch, which was perfect at the business. 
 For this reason, we have associated, as will be seen, 
 with this Newfoundland race, the Pheasant Spaniel, 
 or Springer, as the alpha and omega of that sport. 
 No wild-fowl shooter none of the hardy race of 
 sportsmen, who go down to the sea in punts, and oc- 
 cupy themselves in the dreadful trade of navigating 
 canoes in search of water-fowl should ever be with- 
 out one of these amphibious friends at his side. 
 
CHAPTEB XV. 
 
 BIRDS WHICH ARE NOT "GAME." 
 
 ALTHOUGH mention has been made of the quail and 
 the bustard, among the game birds of the British 
 islands, neither of them, in fact, belong to that class. 
 Still the quail, when it is found, is so constantly met 
 with among partridges, that it seemed most conve- 
 nient to associate its history with theirs ; and as the 
 bustard is now rarely seen at all, it appeared immate- 
 rial where its reminiscences might be given. In 
 strict sporting classification, indeed, several others, 
 set down in the list of game birds, do not belong to 
 that tribe; but as they were necessary to preserve 
 the seasonable routine of shooting, we thought it best 
 to preserve the chronology of our sport, rather than 
 the technical order of the quarry. Acting still further 
 upon that principle, we purpose now treating of those 
 land and fen birds, not being game, that are sought 
 after by sportsmen; and concluding with wild- fowl 
 shooting, as well on the coasts as on inland waters, 
 the latter, as followed on the Highland lochs, 
 
 Q2 
 
198 SHOOTING THE HERON. 
 
 one of the most exciting winter sports to be had in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Foremost among fen birds stands the Bittern, 
 a frequenter of lonesome places and wild regions, 
 whose race seems fast wearing away, as far as relates 
 to these islands. His chief abode now is in the 
 bogs and mountain swamps of Ireland. To find him 
 is the difficult point for the shooter ; when met with 
 he is, generally, an easy prey. His flight is heavy 
 and slow, save when very suddenly flushed, when he 
 will soar perpendicularly, and with considerable rapi- 
 dity. When shooting with a double gun, on raising 
 a bittern which thus towers, we would recommend 
 one barrel being given to him on the instant; the 
 second may be sent after him when he has begun to 
 gyrate. If you bring down a bittern, and he is only 
 winged, or slightly hit, bear in mind, that he is at 
 such times very dangerous to approach : you will, 
 therefore, take such precautions to destroy it as may 
 least injure its plumage; for \ve count upon your 
 intention to preserve it, stuffed, as a memorial of no 
 very common exploit. 
 
 SHOOTING THE HERON. 
 
 As the days of hawking are now over or, at least, 
 on their very last legs it may be lawful to draw 
 trigger upon this bird ; a practice long, among sports- 
 
h 
 
 m 
 H 
 
SHOOTING THE HERON. 199 
 
 men, " more honoured in the breach than in the 
 observance." The keen angler and strict preserver 
 of water will, indeed, make no bones about knock- 
 ing a heron on the head whenever he has the oppor- 
 tunity for he is a sad poacher of the scaly family ; 
 and, like poachers in general, he is wary to a proverb : 
 perhaps there is no bird that flies or swims more 
 difficult to get near, on the land. In passing from 
 the heronry to their fishing quarters, herons fly alto- 
 gether beyond range of shot ; and, as far as our 
 experience of their habits went, during a faithful 
 observance of them in one of the greatest heronries 
 in Suffolk, to circumvent them at home is out of the 
 question. To contrive even the chance of a shot, the 
 only method seems to be to wait for them of course 
 in ambush in the twilight, or when there is a moon 
 abroad, near the waters which they frequent for the 
 purpose of feeding. The sportsman will conceal him- 
 self under a bank, or in some close shade ashore ; or, 
 hiding in his punt under some high bank, he may float 
 down with the stream (close to the lee shore) till he 
 comes upon them. Hitting them, from their size, is, 
 of course, not difficult; and when hit, they are generally 
 done for, as they will carry very little shot. It will 
 be well to remember, the heron, when only wounded, 
 makes a very fierce and dangerous resistance. It is 
 said that the best plan to out-general him is to teaze 
 him for some time, with a stick, or a ramrod, and 
 after he has seized hold of it with his bill, to watch 
 an opportunity of putting a foot on his neck, and 
 
200 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BITTERN. 
 
 then either to despatch him outright, or if he be 
 merely winged, and it is desired to bring him home 
 alive, to tie his bill and legs, and cover up his head 
 with a handkerchief. 
 
 Herons are to be met with constantly on the coasts, 
 and in those situations they are more readily ap- 
 proached. They resort to small ponds, and where 
 the banks are steep, are come upon before they can 
 see the shooter. 
 
 THE BITTEK> 
 
 The Common Bittern (Butor Stettaris, Ardea Stel- 
 lar is). This fen-bird is of singular habits, active 
 
NATUEAL HISTOKY OF THE EITTEEN. 201 
 
 during the night, and at rest in its marshy coverts 
 during the day. Mornings, evenings, and twilight, 
 are the periods at which its ill-famed cry is heard 
 booming afar at regular intervals, like the warning 
 gun of the sentinel, the hoot of the screech-owl, or 
 the bellowings, as some have it, of the wild bull. At 
 these times he is flying across the swamps in search 
 of his food ; but it does not appear accurately known 
 whether this peculiar and solemnly mournful call be 
 a general appeal to his species, or whether it be 
 merely incident, or antecedent to the period of incu- 
 bation. In days of old, when the bittern was a 
 frequent bird of our islands, and its flesh esteemed a 
 choice delicacy of the epicure's table, the cry of the 
 night raven (as the common people were wont to call 
 it, indiscriminately with the true night heron or 
 mire drum) was deemed significant of death, a comet, 
 or an earthquake. In the fens and marshes, indeed, its 
 favourite resorts, nothing can well sound more solemnly 
 ominous of evil than its hollow and direful call. It 
 appears late in autumn, or in winter, in very varying 
 and unequal numbers. In one year it is tolerably 
 plentiful ; in another there shall be found few 
 specimens of the species. Bitterns were unusually 
 plentiful in the winter of 1830-31, both in England 
 and in South Scotland. 
 
 This bird has been known to breed in our marshes. 
 Its ground nest is made on the very edges of marshy 
 swamps, amid the reeds and rushes. A few leaves of 
 water-plants, and some dry rashes, will serve to line 
 
202 THE LITTLE BITTERN. 
 
 the cavity. It lays from seven to eight eggs, of an ash- 
 green colour. It lives upon frogs, aquatic reptiles, 
 and vegetables. Though it claims affinity of form 
 with the heron, in many respects it is its exact oppo- 
 site. It is not so voracious ; it is fleshy, instead of 
 lean and consumptive-looking ; and its brood, instead 
 of being fed by the mother for many days, are in 
 three days led out to supply themselves. The young 
 of the heron are very unsightly creatures, all legs 
 and neck, while the bittern's brood have a comfort- 
 able look shortly after breaking the shell. Jardine 
 surmises that the food of the common bittern is 
 seized by watching, after the manner of the true 
 heron, and that fish and aquatic reptiles are its 
 seasonal food. He says, a land rail has been found 
 in this bird's stomach. The general appearance of 
 its plumage is that of a predominant brown-yellow, 
 with brown or black patches, or markings, fine shad- 
 ings of green and purple at the sides and neck. 
 
 The Little Bittern (Ardeola Minuta). This bird 
 is also occasionally found, and supposed to breed in 
 this country. In form it is somewhat analagous to 
 the small egret tribe. Its particular resorts are 
 marshes, the shores of rivers, and water brush wood 
 districts. Its nests are made on the ground, and its 
 habits are skulking, stalking with the head drawn 
 closely in, so as to conceal the neck. These birds 
 have been killed as far north as Orkney, and also in 
 Ireland, although not often. The plumage is very 
 rich; blackly glazed, with green about the head and 
 
NATURAL HISTOKY OF THE HEEON. 
 
 203 
 
 neck, and yellow and brown tints, dotted with darker 
 ones at the sides and flanks. The Latins named the 
 bittern, stellaris, or the ** star-reaching," while the 
 Greeks, taking its character from its more constant 
 habits, have given it the title of the okios, or the 
 "lazy." 
 
 THE HERON. 
 
 The Common Heron (Ardea Cinerea). When 
 heron hawking was a favourite sport of the British 
 nobility, great pains were taken for the preservation 
 of the species. The heavy penalty of ten shillings 
 was enforced upon every person who destroyed its 
 twenty shillings upon him that killed the bird 
 
204 THE HERON. 
 
 The plume of the heron was a chivalric badge ; the 
 flesh of the heron was sent to table. The fat of the 
 heron, made into a paste with other ingredients, was 
 the favourite bait of those versed in the mysteries of 
 angling. It is a shy bird, but gregarious during the 
 breeding season. Its great beauty has made it a 
 choice ornament of park and forest; although its 
 natural abode lies in districts, broken by vast pools 
 and marshes. In such situations, and during that 
 large portion of the year in which it is a wading, ter- 
 restrial bird, its attitudes are natural and graceful. 
 Its dark purple and bluish grey plumage, beautifully 
 intermingled with white and light shades ; its plumed 
 crest ; its outstretched neck ; the bright-gamboge- 
 yellow irides, and deep yellow bill ; the two broad 
 tufts of lengthened black feathers, that relieve the 
 pure white of the breast at the centre ; and its size, 
 which will exceed three feet, render it a striking 
 object, as it is seen, now elevating, now depressing, 
 its crest, its long legs midway in the water, vora- 
 ciously feeding upon, and indiscriminately attacking, 
 every tribe of fish within its capacity. 
 
 An old writer thus describes its rapacious maw : 
 " I have seen a heron that had been shot, that had 
 seventeen carp in his belly at once, which he will 
 digest in six or seven hours, and then to fishing 
 again. I have seen a carp taken out of a heron's 
 belly nine inches and a half long. Several gentlemen, 
 who kept tame herons, to try what quantity one of 
 them would eat in a day, have put several smaller 
 
THE HEKON. 205 
 
 roach and dace in a tub ; and they have found him 
 eat fifty in a day, one day with another. In this 
 manner, a single heron will destroy fifteen thousand 
 carp in six months," The heron takes his prey 
 either wading in the water, or hovering over it in 
 shallow places. With that bird's-eye accuracy of his 
 species, he penetrates the element with his visual 
 organ, and darts down upon his prey with unerring 
 certainty; his long neck a second under water, and 
 the next rising on the wing, the eel or trout yet alive 
 in his bill, he flies to the shore, quickly to dispatch 
 it, and again returning to the waters for more. It 
 has been said, that he destroys more fish in a week 
 than an otter in three months. In the winter season, 
 however, he fares but ill ; for the fish have retreated 
 into the deep waters, and even aquatic reptiles, water 
 rats, or mice, are scarce. At such times, his indolent 
 patience seems to serve him instead of food ; and he 
 will even take up with the sea-weeds or lake reeds of 
 his locality. 
 
 In forests, its long wings and legs give it an 
 awkward and constrained appearance. Perched on 
 branches of trees, or flying along, its legs and claws 
 outstretched, its ungainly attitudes might sometimes 
 excite risibility. The heron builds its nest on tops 
 of the highest trees, or on cliffs that overhang the 
 sea- shore. In cultivated districts, it will select the 
 oldest timber to build upon : generally, in despite, as 
 it were, of its timidity, it chooses situations close to a 
 thoroughfare. The nests are made of sticks, and 
 
206 THE HEEON. 
 
 lined with wool; and, in building, herons flock together. 
 Sometimes they choose a solitary glen, hy the side of 
 a loch or mountain stream ; and sometimes, it is said, 
 though not avouched, they will hreed upon the ground. 
 Their laziness, produced by their habits of overgorging, 
 is so excessive, that they will not be at the trouble of 
 building a nest, if they happen to find one ready made 
 for their purpose. These birds inhabit Great Britain 
 and Ireland. They are said to be plentiful in Orkney 
 and Shetland ; indeed, they are generally spread over 
 our islands. Where this bird is preserved in a 
 heronry, it has been known to do incalculable mis- 
 chief to the freshly-stocked fish-ponds of domains. 
 Willoughby thus quaintly describes a method for 
 ensnaring them: "Having first discovered the 
 haunt of the heron, get three or four small roach, or 
 dace ; and having provided a strong hook, with a wire 
 to it, this is drawn just within-side the skin of the 
 fish, beginning without-side the gills, and running it 
 to the tail ; by which the fish will not be killed, but 
 continue for four or five days alive. Then, having a 
 strong line, made of silk and wire, about two yards 
 and a-half long, it is tied to a stone at one end, the 
 fish with the hook being suffered to swim about at 
 the other. This being properly disposed in shallow 
 water, the heron will seize upon the fish, to its own 
 destruction." We cannot but here close our notices 
 with an extract from Christopher North's sublimi- 
 ties. His love of sport is expressed too enthusiasti- 
 cally not to interest the young, that are addicted to 
 
THE HERON. 907 
 
 pastimes pursued on "flood, field," and fell : " Slow- 
 sailing heron, that, cloud-like, seekest thy nest on 
 yonder mass of pines ; to us thy flight seems the very 
 symbol of a long, lone, life of peace ! As thou foldest 
 thy wide wings on the topmost bough, beneath thee 
 tower the unregarded ruins, where many generations 
 sleep ! Onwards thou floatest, like a dream ; nor 
 changest thy gradually-descending course for the 
 eagle, that, far above thy line of travel, comes rush- 
 ing unwearied, from his prey, in distant isles of the 
 sea." And, again, where he speaks of the pastimes 
 of Craig Hall : " Hush ! stoop kneel crawl ; for, 
 by all our hopes of mercy, a heron a heron ! An 
 eel dangling across his bill ! And now the water- 
 serpent has disappeared ! From morning dawn hath 
 the fowl been fishing here perhaps on that very 
 stone ; for it is one of those days, when eels are 
 a-roaming in the shallows, and the heron knows that 
 they are as likely to pass by that stone as any other 
 from morning dawn, and 'tis now past meridian. 
 Be propitious, oh, ye Fates ! and never never shall 
 he again fold his wings on the edge of his gaping 
 nest, on the trees that overtop the only tower left of 
 the castle. Another eel ! And we, too, can crawl 
 silent as the sinuous serpent. Flash ! Bang ! over 
 he goes, dead ! no, not dead ; but how unlike that 
 unavailing flapping, as head over heels he goes spin- 
 ning over the tarn, to the serene unsettling of him- 
 self from sod or stone, when, his hunger sated, and 
 his craw filled with fish for his far-off brood, he used 
 
208 THE HERON. 
 
 to lift his blue bulk into the air, and, with long- 
 depending legs, at first floated away like a wearied 
 thing, but soon, as his plumes felt the current of air 
 homewards flowing, urged swifter and swifter his 
 easy course, laggard and lazy no more, leaving 
 leagues behind him, ere you had shifted your mo- 
 tion in watching his cloud-like career, soon invi- 
 sible among the woods." " Into the silent twilight of 
 many a wild rock-and-river scene, beautiful and be- 
 wildering as the fairy work of sleep, will he find him- 
 self brought, who knows where to seek the heron in 
 all his solitary haunts. Often, when the moors are 
 storm-swept, and the heron's bill would be baffled by 
 the waves of tarn and loch, he. sails away from his 
 swinging- tree, and through some open glade dipping 
 down to the secluded stream, alights within the calm 
 chasm, and folds his wings in the breezeless air. A 
 better day, a better hour, a better minute, for fish- 
 ing, could not have been chosen by Mr. Heron, 
 who is already swallowing a par. Another and 
 another ! but something falls from the rock into 
 the water; and suspicious, though unalarmed, he 
 leisurely addresses himself to a short flight up the 
 channel, round that tower-like cliff, standing strangely 
 by itself, with a crest of self-sown flowering shrubs. 
 Thou believest thyself to be alone, for the otter, thou 
 knowest, loves not such very rocky rivers ; and fish, 
 with bitten shoulder, seldom lies here that epicure's 
 tasted prey ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVI, 
 
 SHOOTING THE KNOT, THE LAND AND WATER 
 RAILS, THE GODWIT, THE GOLDEN PLOVER, 
 THE GREY PLOVER, AND THE LAPWING. 
 
 THE first of these little birds is a fen bird ; and, in 
 in point of rank and ancient name, the most distin- 
 guished. He is said to derive his name from King 
 Canute, or "Knoute," whose palate he suited so 
 exactly, that the monarch was never happy but when 
 he was devouring one. The Knot is more generally 
 netted than shot ; though, when the fens are frozen, 
 it repairs to the sea-side, where the coast-shooters 
 often bag a whole flock at one discharge. Where, 
 however, the young gunner has an opportunity of 
 meeting it in any tolerable plenty, he will find it 
 afford him excellent practice. 
 
 THE LAND BAIL. 
 
 In searching after the Land Rail (or Corn Crake, 
 of many districts) which, indeed, is about as profit- 
 
10 SHOOTING THE WATER RAIL, THE 
 
 able as looking for a needle in a hay-stack go, if go 
 you will, into clover-fields, and bean and potato 
 pieces. The young meadows in Ireland are voci- 
 ferous with them ; but, of all the feathered family, 
 they are the most impossible to deal with. To do it 
 with even the shadow of a chance, take into the 
 range you purpose beating two or three close-working, 
 steady spaniels, and be always in the centre of them. 
 Never forget the rail always keeps moving ; therefore, 
 whenever and wherever he gets up should he ever 
 rise incontinently blaze away, taking the most re- 
 mote possibility of overtaking him with a single 
 pellet. The only excuse a sportsman can offer him- 
 self for being found looking after rails is, that a shot 
 in hay-harvest 4ime is worth something, for the 
 purpose of keeping the hand in. 
 
 THE WATER RAIL. 
 
 As this bird is really an amphibious ortolan, the 
 epicure will not begrudge the trouble of bringing one 
 to table. A patient shot will bag one, perhaps, in 
 twelve hours but that only by remembering to press 
 him without an instant's interval, should he happen 
 to be found. As the creature, however, is very 
 poorly supplied with the resources of safety, no doubt 
 nature has given it discretion, which is the best pre- 
 servative from danger. If the water rail has taken 
 refuge in a hedge or cover, go in advance of your 
 dogs, which it will most probably be watching, and 
 
GOD WIT, AND GOLDEN PLOVER. 211 
 
 flush it yourself. Of course, always fire at it, when 
 within sight. A good water spaniel is indispensable 
 in shooting the water rail. 
 
 THE GODWIT. 
 
 The Godwit is another fen bird, but found, 
 during their winter shooting, by the fowlers of our 
 coasts. Here it is met with singly ; but in the 
 northern regions of America, it goes in flocks of great 
 numbers, as many as seventy-two having been killed 
 at one shot by a Mr. Atkinson, a resident at Hud- 
 son's Bay. It is also a bonne boitche, as rare to our 
 bills of fare as its savoury compatriot, the knot. As 
 the chances of falling in with this bird are " few and far 
 between," the sportsman, who has the luck to meet 
 it, must take such advantage of his good fortune as 
 circumstances make most advisable. 
 
 THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 
 
 Among gourmands, the Golden Plover ranks next 
 to the woodcock some esteem them equally ; there- 
 fore it is good to shoot this feathered beau on all 
 occasions, seeing that he is especial delicate eating. 
 It is resident among us all the year round, and 
 resorts chiefly to the most secluded marshes and water- 
 meadows, keeping more than a gun-shot, generally, 
 clear of all danger, or places of ambush for the 
 
2 J '2 SHOOTING GREY PLOVER AND LAPWING. 
 
 sportsman. Colonel Hawker says, golden plovers 
 were formerly killed in great numbers by means of 
 stalking-horses. We never saw the contrivance put 
 in practice, but bear testimony to the truth of the 
 second plan he mentions : " If you fire at these 
 birds, as they fly over you, they will dart down for 
 a moment, and spread in every direction : so that, by 
 taking a random shot with your first barrel, you may 
 often bring down the birds to a fair one for your 
 second." Golden plovers may be looked for in all 
 places where their favourite food, worms, are likely to 
 be found. 
 
 THE GEEY PLOVEK. 
 
 Ireland seems the chosen land of the Grey 
 Plover, which is there met with in strong flocks ; 
 but almost invariably associated with the Lapwing, 
 or Green Plover, the most wary sentinel that ever 
 bore feathers. The most probable method of bagging 
 this bird is to wait till he is on the wing. This he 
 commences by towering at first in close order, and 
 then descending, and sweeping, within a few feet of 
 the ground, in circles and gyrations. It is when 
 engaged in these manoeuvres he is most readily shot. 
 
 THE LAPWING. 
 
 According to the French proverb, " he who has 
 not eaten the Lapwing, does not know what game 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KNOT. 
 
 213 
 
 is." This may be all very true, for there is no standard 
 of taste ; for our part, we think there is more virtue 
 in the thigh of a woodcock, and the bosom of a hen- 
 pheasant, than in a whole wilderness of peewits. 
 " Old peewits," says Colonel Hawker, a great authority 
 in feathered amphibia, " fly round a dog, in order to 
 mislead him." With a dog, therefore, one may be 
 able to kill several of these birds in the marshes, 
 which they frequent. The afternoon is the best 
 time, as peewits prefer the uplands during the morn- 
 ing. This is the plover whose eggs are so popular. 
 
 The Knot (Tringa Canutus, Linn.). This is the 
 second bird in rank of the species Tringa, or Mari- 
 time Sandpipers ; the most beautiful and abundant 
 
214 THE KNOT. 
 
 of which, along our coasts, is the Purre, or Dunlin, 
 or Stint, of British authors. 
 
 The Knot, or Red and Ash-coloured Sandpiper, 
 does not, as far as is known, breed in England ; nor 
 is it so regular an attendant upon our maritime coasts 
 as the beautiful purre : but at times it visits us in 
 great numbers. The seasons for its accustomed 
 appearance are autumn and winter. Its summer 
 and winter plumage, of respective red and ashy hues, 
 has assisted in its various nomenclature ; and its 
 primeval estimation as a tit-bit for the palate of our 
 northern invader and conqueror, Canute, procured for 
 it its present familiar name of knot, as before stated. 
 It is a fen bird, frequenting saline marshes, where it 
 follows the retiring tides, and delighting in the soft, 
 oozy mud of such localities, where it feeds almost 
 regardless of danger, although, at times shy and 
 diffident of approach. Knots stay on our shores 
 sufficiently long to change their summer dress. The 
 tops of the rocks, in the different bays and estuaries 
 in Scotland and Ireland, are sometimes, at fullest 
 tide, covered with them. Here they will sit, and 
 rest the live-long day, or until the waves recede 
 sufficiently for them to pursue their search for food. 
 Jardine says, he procured many specimens of them 
 in Holy Island, on the coast of Northumberland, 
 with stones merely; as they will, shortly after their 
 migration, allow themselves to be approached within 
 the distance of a few yards. He also states, " that 
 the nests are placed under, or by the side of, some 
 
THE KNOT. 215 
 
 tuft or bush of grass, or herbage : often ingeniously 
 concealed, but exhibiting little workmanship, except 
 a little hollowing and pressing of the dried grass to 
 the bottom." The entire length of these birds is 
 about seven inches and a half; their breasts are fat 
 and fleshy, and wliere they pick up abundance of 
 food, they become an edible almost as appetising as 
 the reeve. 
 
 After incubation, we find the plumage of a 
 prevalent reddish orange ; .the sides of the head 
 are slightly spotted with a brownish black, while the. 
 crown and back of the head have the feathers broadly 
 streaked with the same tints. The middle of the 
 back, scapulars, and long tertials are of a dark 
 brown, save where, broadly margined with a buff 
 orange colour, or irregularly notched with yellow 
 white. The under parts are pure white, with small 
 dark markings in centre ; the quills dark brown, 
 paler on the inside ; the shafts w r hite and broad. 
 The tail is brown, tinted with green and brown. 
 
 Generic characters of Tringce : bill of the same 
 length, or slightly longer than the head, often gently 
 curved, soft and pliable ; wings rather long, sharp 
 pointed, the first quill longest ; tarsi and feet of 
 middle length ; toes slightly joined at the base, and 
 narrowly fringed on the edges with a membrane ; 
 hallux small, articulated on the tarsus. Types : T. 
 Canutus, variabilis, maritima, &c. Gregarious in 
 winter. Cosmopolite. 
 
 As we have said, the Purre, or Dunlin, is the most 
 
S16 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LAND RAIL. 
 
 numerous, as well as the most beautiful species of the 
 maritime sandpipers. It is distributed along almost 
 all our sea-coasts, from north to south. In winter, 
 the birds congregate in almost innumerable packs, on 
 the shores and estuaries, where they follow the tide, 
 in their feeding parties, with great assiduity. They 
 have the most picturesque effect possible, thus 
 crowded together, after, or before, their repasts, 
 either perching on the rocks, or inactively strewing 
 the beach. They are from seven to eight inches 
 long. Wherever, in Scotland, or our own country, 
 the sea forms estuaries, or the country is studded 
 with lochs, there be sure, this beautifully-coated 
 little creature may be seen in flocks, in its gayest 
 attire, hunting for the softest food. Provincially, the 
 ox-bird, or stint. 
 
 The Land Rail, or Corn Crake (Rallies Crex: 
 Linn.). We cannot write of the land rail, before 
 dinner, without a certain exudation from the palate. 
 This fat little bird must not be confounded with the 
 water rail : besides that its bill is much shorter, 
 it is much more timorous indeed, so much so as 
 to be almost invisible but to the most persevering 
 pointer and sportsman; and it is made so strong 
 in the lower limbs, by the length of the leg, shank, 
 and toes, that its rapidity of motion appears next 
 to miraculous. What need of wings at all to a 
 creature, considering its proportions, with such an 
 enormous capacity of stretch. Talk of seven-league 
 boots, indeed ! You must drop the simile, and think 
 
OR CORN CRAKE. 
 
 of the railroad car. It is named corn crake, from 
 its noise, or call, " Creke, creke, creke," which may 
 be heard "nowhere, now there, now everywhere, and 
 
 THE LAND RAIL. 
 
 now nowhere ; " and wherefore ? Simply, that the 
 bird is an uneducated ventriloquist, and deceives 
 you into the belief, that he is at any spot the farthest, 
 from the actual one. In many respects, its habits 
 are similar to those of the water rail ; for though the 
 first seeks the thick grass meadows, and moist and 
 sheltered vales, yet are its preferences chiefly aquatic, 
 taking to osier-beds, young grass, or grain in moist 
 places, and low-lying districts, before any others. 
 Here he will choose his position, uttering his "creke M 
 from a clod of earth, and you shall be running on 
 one side and the other, and ever so far away after his 
 
218 THE LAND KAIL, 
 
 call, which possesses all the modulations of distance. 
 The nest is made as carelessly as the partridge's, 
 with some soft, dry leaves, or grass ; there it lays 
 from ten to twelve eggs. Moss is sometimes intro- 
 duced into the architecture of the nest; and some 
 natural hollow of the ground is always selected. Its 
 eggs are of a dull white ; its food, in summer, insects, 
 worms, and slugs. Jardine once took a mouse from 
 the stomach of a corn crake. This bird will some- 
 times dive and swim in a singular manner. We have 
 read of a Mr. Jervis, who possessed a young bird of 
 this species, that was immoderately fond of the water. 
 It would dart to the bottom, and swim, and splash 
 about, with the superabundant activity of a creature 
 unused to any other element. The corn crake is 
 found generally all over the British islands, but we 
 wish it were in more plenty. It extends north to 
 Shetland and Orkney. It has, however, almost dis- 
 appeared in several localities w r here it was frequent. 
 In the south of Scotland, ten years ago, it was plenti 
 ful ; it is now very rare in the same vales. The 
 " creke" is only uttered during the season of incuba- 
 tion. We give Jardine 's description of the feathers 
 and generic characters : " Over the eyes, behind the 
 auriculars, and extending beyond the neck, is a streak 
 of grey, blending into the colours on either side ; on 
 the crown, back of the upper parts and tertials, the 
 ground colour, or centre, of the feathers, is hair 
 brown, each being very broadly edged with yellow- 
 ochre brown, or a yellow tint of oil green ; the wing 
 
OR CORN CRAKE. 219 
 
 coverts, and axillary feathers, orange brown; the 
 quills a dull, reddish hair hrown, darkest on the inner 
 webs ; the region of the eyes, auriculars, and sides of 
 the neck, are reddish wood brown, shaded into the 
 throat and breast, the former of which is white, 
 tinted with grey, the latter yellowish brown; the 
 centre of the belly is nearly white, shading gradually 
 to the sides and flanks, which are embellished with a 
 red orange, barred with hair brown, pink towards the 
 base ; legs and feet yellowish brown. This bird 
 migrates to Madeira and to Africa. Its varieties are 
 the Spotted Crake, or Spotted Gallinule, which is 
 also a summer visiter to the British shores : the 
 Little Crake, which is called Baillon's Crake, or 
 Gallinule, of British authors ; the upper parts of 
 which are delicately and most beautifully spotted with 
 pure white. This has been taken as far north as 
 Derbyshire." 
 
 The last crake we have to enumerate, is the 
 Little Crake, spoken of above by Jardine (Gallinula 
 minuta). This bird is of plainer plumage than the 
 rest of the family, but in modification and habits it is 
 very similar. 
 
 Generic characters of Or ex: bill short, strong at 
 the base ; culmen entering the plumage of the fore- 
 head, its outline slightly deflected to the tip ; maxilla 
 angulated ; nasal fossa broad ; nostrils pierced in the 
 membrane ; wings, at the carpal angle, armed with a 
 knob, or rudimentary spine, rather short, concave, 
 second or third quills longest; legs strong, naked for 
 
220 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WATER RAIL. 
 
 a short space above the tarsal joint : anterior toes 
 long, slender, cleft to the base ; hallux short, articu- 
 culated nearly on the plane of the others. Types : 
 C. pratemis, porrana, gularis, &c. Cosmopolite. 
 Habits, skulking ; chiefly aquatic ; breed on the 
 ground; lay numerous eggs; noisy, and often noc- 
 turnal. 
 
 THE WATER RAIL. 
 
 The Water Rail of British authors. This is a 
 bird of skulking habits, that inhabits or frequents flat 
 and oozy levels, fens, and marshes. It is of the 
 family Hallid^e, the most aquatic of the Grallatores. 
 It is abundant neither in our own countiy, nor in 
 Scotland : perhaps, however, it will be more correct 
 to say, that the shy and wary habits of the bird 
 render its haunts little pervious to the perseverance 
 
THE WATER BAIL. 221 
 
 of man. Its powers of flight are very limited, for its 
 wings are short and concave, and ill-adapted for 
 rapidity of motion ; thus, instead of trusting to this 
 mode of safety, it conceals itself amid the thick- 
 matted vegetation of a low-lying country. To com- 
 pensate for its awkward and fluttering flight, we find 
 it has been given a structure of feet and legs admi- 
 rably adapted for swiftness ; while the shape of its 
 bill, head, and form is slender, to enable it, with 
 facility, to pierce through the maze of aquatic plants 
 and grasses of its localities. 
 
 Specimens of the water rail are often procured in 
 the winter; when it is driven, by the severity of the 
 season, to haunts nearer the reach of man, into some 
 cavity, or covered place, where it is sometimes even 
 taken by the hand. Sir W. Jardine mentions, that, 
 in his own vicinity, the bird will be met with, in 
 winter, in the wet ditches that do not easily freeze ; 
 where, no doubt, it can still procure food. The same 
 naturalist thus describes an adult male, shot in his 
 neighbourhood. The accuracy of Jardine 's specifica- 
 tions makes them especially valuable to young natu- 
 ralists : 
 
 " This male bird has the crown and all the upper 
 parts yellowish brown, tinted with oil green, the 
 centre of each feather black ; on the centre of the 
 back occupying nearly the whole feather, but on the 
 lower part and scapulars being in the centre only, and 
 there on the wings and tail, allowing the pale colour 
 to be the prevailing one ; quills nearly clove brown ; 
 
 s 2 
 
2 "2 '2 THE WATEE KAIL. 
 
 on the forehead, until beyond the line of the eyes, the 
 shafts of each feather are strong, and protrude in a 
 horny point ; the chin greyish white ; the region of 
 the eyes, cheeks, sides of the neck, and under parts, 
 until in a line with the legs, bluish grey ; the flanks 
 black, barred with white ; tips of the feathers reddish 
 wood brown, forming a line of that colour along the 
 centre of the vent, joining with the under tail coverts, 
 which are similar, their basal half being black, which 
 sometimes appears mixed with them ; axillary feathers 
 barred with black and white ; the bill is blackish 
 brown at the tip, at the base tile red, becoming 
 brighter and orange red upon the edges of the gape ; 
 legs greenish brown. White varieties sometimes 
 occur." 
 
 Rallus aquaticus. Generic characters are : long, 
 compressed, and slender bills ; nasal furrow long and 
 wide ; liney nostrils, pierced near the middle of the 
 length ; rounded, short, and concave wings, the third 
 and fourth quills of which are longest ; carpal angle 
 often armed with a spine ; legs of medium length, 
 bare above the tarsal joint; long and slender feet, 
 toes cleft to the base ; hallux short, articulated near 
 the plane of the others. Type : R. aquaticus, &c. 
 Cosmopolite. Habits, aquatic ; skulking ; cry, of a 
 ventriloquist power ; lay numerous eggs ; perch on 
 rails, fences, or low trunks of trees ; feathers of the 
 forehead, with the shafts, prolonged into horny points. 
 
 Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa melanura ; Scolopax 
 limosa, Linn.). This is a handsome bird, breeding 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE GODWIT. 
 
 in the English fens, and delighting in oozy marshes 
 and moist low grounds, common to our coasts and 
 the Scottish ; it is also known in Ireland. In the 
 breeding season, the plumage of the godwit is very 
 fine, heing red, of different shades, varying from 
 dusky to orange. The head, neck, and breasts are 
 usually of the paler tints, faintest at the eyes and 
 throat; each feather of the crown being marked 
 lengthwise with a brown black ; the breast and sides 
 are also marked irregularly with black, the flank bars 
 being wide and distinct. There is a great deal of 
 white underneath, but barred and marked with dusky 
 brown. The ground upper colour is of a fine, black, 
 glossy brown, with a purple hue, and crossed by bars 
 of pale orange-coloured brown. The rump and tail 
 coverts are white, and the rest of the tail black, of 
 a rich hue : the extremity of the tail slightly diverges 
 into forks when shut. The quills of the wings are a 
 deep greyish black on the outer webs and edges, 
 graduating to white inside ; the shafts of all orange- 
 white. The bill is orange, shading into black-brown 
 at the extremity ; the legs and feet are greenish grey. 
 In winter, the chaster hues predominate. The whole 
 has a tea-green and black effect ; but the plumage is 
 really greenish brown, darker along the centres, the 
 black and white of the tail pretty much the same as 
 its summer dress. Intermediate to these periods 
 there are many variations of hue. The eye is large 
 and full. The geographical range of the godwit is 
 extensive : in the summer, as far as Greenland ; in 
 
224 THE GODWIT 
 
 the winter, it is known in Africa, in the Japan 
 Islands, and many other parts. In exterior form it 
 resembles the heron and several of the crane kind, 
 from the length of its bill, neck, and legs, and its un- 
 feathered joints, which, Jardine remarks, "remove it 
 from the more squat or lowly figure of the plovers and 
 true Tringte." It was formerly held in high esti- 
 mation as a table delicacy; and, well fattened, is 
 not now altogether despised. The godwit seldom 
 skulks in sheltered places, its whole structure appear- 
 ing adapted to an aquatic life in the open marshes 
 and coasts ; being, like most of the crane kind, very 
 clamorous and noisy ; and in this, as well as in the 
 harder construction of the bill, unlike the true snipe. 
 We give, as the most correct of all naturalists, the 
 generic character of the godwit from Sir W. Jardine : 
 " Bill very long, strong at the base, compressed, 
 bending upwards ; mandible smooth, rounded, slightly 
 dilated at the tip, projecting beyond the maxilla; 
 wings long, quills with the shafts very strong, flat- 
 tened, first longest; legs long; tibias naked for the 
 greater part of their length ; outer toes connected by 
 a membrane more than half the length of the basal 
 joint; hind toe articulated on the tarsus." 
 
 Habits maritime , gregarious in winter, clamorous 
 in breeding season. Europe, Asia, America. Types : 
 L. melanura, ru/a, Sc. &c. 
 
 The Common or Red Godwit (Limosa rufa). Grey 
 Godwit. Common or Red Godwit of British authors. 
 Red-breasted Snipe. 
 
THE GODWIT. 
 
 225 
 
 This is a variety of the black-tailed godwit, more 
 generally abundant than it, and yet far from common. 
 Colonel Montague describes the red godwit as larger 
 than the last species, weighing about twelve ounces, 
 and measuring about eighteen inches. It appears 
 
 THE GODWIT. 
 
 early in August, and remains with us through the 
 winter. It is more noisy than the former species ' 
 and the peculiar shrillness of its cry, as it flies, 
 uttering a sort of whelp, whelp, betrays it at once. 
 It chooses a locality close to the shore or beach, 
 where it can make use of its long bill in the soft 
 sand or mud. Here it congregates in small parties ; 
 and here it associates with many of the other birds 
 to whom its habits or form bear affiinity. It is 
 most known northward in our islands, and is said 
 
226 THE GOD WIT. 
 
 to be a punctual attendant of autumn in the sister 
 kingdom. The plumage changes from the rufous of 
 the summer tin tings, to the grey of the winter hues. 
 Sir W. Jardine relates, that " he has never missed 
 parties of them in the end of August and in Septem- 
 ber, mingling with others of the Totani and Tringce 
 which are considered of less common occurrence on 
 the border." He is speaking of the river Merse (at 
 Skinburnness), and banks of the Wimpoole on the 
 Sol way. He also mentions the "low shores between 
 Holy Island and the Northumbrian coast," as a fre- 
 quent locality for these birds. Their habits are 
 greatly similar to those of the black- tailed species. 
 The general range of the bird is not considered so 
 extensive as the last-mentioned variety, being chiefly 
 confined to some portions of Europe not so far north, 
 a few frequenting portions of India and its islands. 
 It has a larger bill, with longer legs, than the black- 
 tailed species. For the rest, its manner of raising 
 food, breeding, &c., is the same as that of the black 
 godwit. 
 
 The Common Lapwing (Vanellus cristatus ; Tringa 
 vanellus, Linn.). The common Green or Crested 
 Lapwing of British authors (provincial). Bastard 
 Plover. This may be termed the head of the plover 
 family, and is the most noble in appearance; its 
 brightly varied and pencilled plumage, and its inte- 
 resting habits, combining to make it a great favourite 
 with every ornithologist. This bird breeds inland; 
 but, as may be seen from the structure of its feet, 
 
NATURAL HISTOEY OF THE LAPWING. 
 
 227 
 
 has an affinity with the Tringce and Totani tribes, 
 and its habits are, therefore, partly maritime. It 
 also, like these, changes its seasonal plumage ; it is, 
 however, larger in size, and though distinguished (in 
 one or two species) by its graceful and adorning crest, 
 its affinities are almost all plover-like. 
 
 THE GREEN PLOVER. 
 
 The whole of the British empire may boast the 
 possession of the Peewit ; yet is it far from being the 
 numerous family it was once in our country. Agri- 
 culture has greatly trended on its resorts, and locali- 
 ties once echoing with the clamorous cry of the 
 parent birds, and absolutely thronged with their 
 lively plumage, are now but thinly scattered over 
 with their lessened numbers. The lapwing likes 
 wet and boggy pastures, low moist meadows, fenny 
 
228 THE LAPWING. 
 
 grounds, and sub-alpine moors. Wherever these are 
 situated, either on the shore or inland, may be found 
 the haunt of the peewits. They congregate at first 
 early in the spring, then separate into pairs as they 
 proceed to breed. At the season of incubation the 
 inland moors are covered with them, huddling and 
 tumbling about in their anxiety to deter the wayfarer 
 from approaching their nests, and performing the 
 while those beautiful evolutions of flight for which 
 the tribe is remarkable, and which exhibit to such 
 advantage the peculiar beauty, variety, and glossiness 
 of the lapwings' feather tints, as they are seen by 
 myriads dancing and darting to and fro in the sum- 
 mer sunsets. They chiefly feed noctumally, or at 
 dusk, Plovers' eggs so named, are those of the pee- 
 wit ; and the young birds' flesh is by no means to be 
 despised as a table delicacy. The nests of this bird are 
 found by dogs trained for the purpose ; their instinct of 
 scent is made use of, and they will point as at game 
 till the eggs are taken. In the full plumage of the 
 peewit, the crown, &c., is black, finely glossed with 
 purple ; the feathers, springing from the occiput in a 
 waving plume or crest, are narrow, long, and black, 
 curving gracefully upwards, and to be raised at will 
 erect ; round the throat a yellow white is encircled, 
 a sort of oval patch on either side below the eye is 
 pure white ; the nape of neck is pale brown, beyond 
 the most glossy black and purple ; the back and 
 wings a splendid olive green, having rainbow reflec- 
 tions of deeper tints of blue and steel colour, and 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 229 
 
 beautifully variegated, while the belly is white ; the 
 wings are steel-blue, or ash with white and chestnut 
 red in parts ; the tail short, black, with white at 
 extremity ; legs a dusky purple red ; the young have 
 a little more yellow in the tinting ; the colours of the 
 female are slightly subdued. 
 
 THE GOLDEN FLOVEE. 
 
 The Golden Plover (Squatarola plumalis ; Chara- 
 drius plumalis, Linn.). The presence or want of 
 a hind toe seems to have decided our naturalists 
 upon their generic distribution of the plover family. 
 There are two species of plover so called, the Great 
 
230 THE GOLDEN PLOVEE. 
 
 Plover (also entitled Stone Curlew and Norfolk Plo- 
 ver, also the Grey), and the Golden Plover ; the last 
 of which, as being the most interesting of the family, 
 we take as the head of the list, although the smallest 
 of the species. It is scarcely above ten inches long, 
 and its weight is no more than from seven to eight 
 ounces. This bird is common in Britain on sedgy 
 islands where there are few or no inhabitants, where 
 they can strew the ground with their nests, and, 
 as it were, claim its inherent possession. It occurs 
 abundantly on our coasts in winter, and, contrary to 
 the habits of the grey species, is seen in vast flocks. 
 It is thus known far and wide among the sub- 
 alpine moorlands of Scotland, the sedgy moors of 
 Ireland, and in our own country in every suitable 
 locality. In such resorts, when 
 
 " The wheeling plover ceased 
 Her plaint, 't was silence all." 
 
 Nothing can well be more noisy than this family 
 Let an intruder but approach the brood, and off she 
 flies, wailing and whelping out her singular cry, in 
 very advance of the enemy; then, after convincing 
 herself of the absence of danger, she will whisk away 
 through the sylvan coverts loved by the cushat, ere 
 she again returns to her young. The breeding 
 plumage begins to change as soon as the bird settles 
 in her location ; the nest is made with great careless- 
 ness, and lined very indifferently with mere grasses 
 or materials close at hand. The nest is a mere 
 
THE GOLDEN PLOVER 231 
 
 ground cavity, or scratched hollow. Towards autumn 
 the young grown birds descend in flocks to the fallows, 
 or wet meadows ; and towards winter they are again 
 on the coasts, and become excessively shy. Just 
 before that period they are killed in great numbers, 
 while describing those flight-circles which bring them 
 so near to the gun of the sportsman. They resort 
 greatly to Orkney and Shetland. 
 
 Nothing can be more pleasing to the eye than the 
 summer plumage of this beautiful bird; the deep, 
 soft, rich velvety black about its head and throat, the 
 white and yellow immediately contrasting with that 
 hue on the sides and under tail coverts ; the fine, pale 
 brown of the back and other parts ; the forehead 
 streak of white ; the shot purple glossings of its neck, 
 and the triangles of yellow on each feather ; marking 
 their contrast on this part from the nape of the neck, 
 where the feathers are dark in the centres, and 
 broadly edged with gold colour ; and so on through 
 the whole brightly tintly plumage. The winter dress, 
 though not very dissimilar, brings more ash colour 
 and grey to the feathers, and a paler yellow; while 
 the intermediate hues between winter and summer 
 are always richly varied. The bill is black ; the legs 
 grey : the female differs in the distinctness and depth 
 of the colours. Sir W. Jardine specifies, that the 
 correct limits of the species have not been ascertained, 
 and that the Arctic and American birds are specifi- 
 cally distinct. He is inclined to believe that the 
 foreign golden plover is the C. Virginianus, a smaller 
 
232 NATUEAL HISTOEY OF THE GEEY PLOVEE. 
 
 bird; but he possesses specimens from America, as it 
 is said, agreeing with our bird in every particular. 
 This is the Pluvier dore of French authors. 
 
 The third species of the true plover is a foreign 
 one, the C. pluvialis and Virginianus ; a most beau- 
 tiful creature, according to the specimens we have 
 seen of it. 
 
 The Grey Plover (Squatarola cinerea. Tringa 
 squatarola, Linn.). The Grey or Bustard Plover of 
 British authors. This bird is at least twelve inches 
 long, and twenty-four broad ; its weight rather more 
 than that of the golden plover. We have no reason to 
 conclude it to be a summer visitant in England ; but in 
 other parts of the year, and after the breeding season, 
 it is often found assembled together in small packs, 
 although never in the same flocks as the more abun- 
 dant kind, the beautiful golden plover. Thus, we see 
 it on our north-eastern coasts, in the Fern Islands, 
 in the south, and generally on the borders of Scot- 
 land. Its geographical range is greatly more exten- 
 sive. According to different authors, we may place 
 it in the Feroe Islands, Iceland, and Northern Europe, 
 as a summer and winter guest. Dr. Fleming believes 
 that it breeds in Algoa Bay, Egypt, Japan, and Java, 
 and on the highest Kincardine hills. Selby has seen, 
 in June, some birds on the Fern Islands. The poul- 
 terers' shops, in London, exhibit them early in the 
 season : but, in the latter case, they may have already 
 put on their nuptial attire ; in the former, some few 
 birds may have been wounded, and unable to migrate. 
 
THE GBEY PLOVER. 233 
 
 The winter dress of the grey kind is brown, of 
 different shades, in each feather marked angularly 
 with grey, ash, or whitish yellow ; while the summer 
 plumage contains a great deal of the richest hlack, 
 and the underneath parts much interspersed with 
 white, such as the vent, tail-coverts, thighs, &c. The 
 upper portions of back, scapulars, &c., finely varie- 
 gated in browns, each feather edged with white. 
 Upper tail white, barred with brown part of the dis- 
 tance ; central feathers coming to a point, axillary 
 feathers black. 
 
 The plover shares in the quarrelsome nature of 
 the ruff, and other birds of similar habits ; but in an 
 inferior degree. As soon as the brood leaves the egg, 
 the parent bird leads them about; for as they are 
 thickly covered with down, they require less care than 
 birds of the poultry kind. 
 
 The generic characters of the Squatarola are thus 
 described by the accurate pen of Jardine : " Bill 
 rather strong, tumid, flattened on the culmen ; cylin- 
 drical towards the tip, which is hard; nasal groove 
 wide, more than half the length of the bill ; nostrils 
 linear, pierced in the nasal membrane ; wings long, 
 pointed, first quill longest; legs rather short, bare 
 for a short space only above the tarsal joint ; toes con- 
 nected by a small basal membrane, slightly fringed 
 on their edges ; hallux rudimentary, or wanting. 
 Types : 8. linarea pluvianus. Virginianus. Cosmo- 
 polite. Breed inland ; gregarious, except during in- 
 cubation : undergo a seasonal change " 
 
 T 2 
 
234 
 
 OTHER VARIETIES OF THE PLOVER. 
 
 The bird described by Elaine and others as the 
 Great Plover, is the Common Thick-knee ((Edicnemus 
 crepitans) ; a diminutive variety of which is mentioned by 
 Bewick and White under the name of the Long-legged 
 Plover, whose alliance to the bustard family is demon- 
 
 THE LONG -LEGGED PLOVER. 
 
 strated as well by its length of legs, as its resorting to 
 the same open and extensive plains as the latter, and 
 depositing not more than two eggs at a time. One 
 of its names being the Norfolk Plover, it is scarcely 
 needful to state, that it is found in that county rather 
 
OTHEE VARIETIES OF THE PLOVER. 235 
 
 abundantly, and in many other of the eastern and 
 southern shires, as well as in Lincolnshire, but not 
 far north. It is found in Ireland, as also is the true 
 plover ; the latter in the greatest abundance. 
 
 This bird, also indifferently termed Stone Curlew, 
 is of nocturnal habits, the large, round, prominent 
 ball of the eye, proving its capacity for night prowl- 
 ing. It breeds occasionally in the fallows, makes a 
 nest in shingly hollows, on the bare ground, and picks 
 up its food somewhat promiscuously from the ground, 
 the water, and the marsh, worms, reptiles, and even 
 small mammalia. It is a finely marked bird, of rich 
 greenish brown and yellow, with white and cream 
 yellows underneath ; base of bill bright yellow, ex- 
 tremity black ; legs very long, and greenish yellow ; 
 pure white under the throat; under quills of wings 
 with much white ; round the bare space of the eyes 
 bright yellow. 
 
CHAPTER XVII, 
 
 SHOOTING THE DOTTEREL, THE RUFF AND 
 REEVE, THE GREBE, THE CURLEW, THE 
 COOT, THE OXBIRD, THE REDWING, THE 
 FIELDFARE, AND THE LARK. 
 
 THE DOTTEREL. 
 
 This is one of the few British birds with which 
 fable has been busy. It is taken, runs the story, 
 by means of an unhappy propensity that of mimick- 
 ing the spectator, be his attitude what it may ; and 
 thus it remains till the net of the fowler is thrown 
 over it. At present it is shot as its congeners are ; 
 and this is not a difficult matter when it can be met 
 with. The chief resorts of the dotterel are the fens 
 of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. 
 
 THE RUFF AND REEVE. 
 
 These eccentrics are natives of our fens, but 
 partially confining themselves to the districts of Cam- 
 
SHOOTING THE GREBE, THE CURLEW. 237 
 
 bridgeshire, and thence northward. So soon as they 
 see a Reeve, the Ruffs begin to fight ; and desperate 
 little fellows they are. " The sporting history of these 
 birds," Elaine tells us, " was formerly a very interest- 
 ing subject, and collected together numbers of gentry : 
 some to watch their habits, some to shoot them, 
 more to see them netted, and many more to eat 
 them" (by all accounts, the best fun of any). Their 
 price was somewhere about two guineas a dozen by 
 Apicius costly feeding ? but that was after they had 
 been stuffed with milk, hempseed, boiled wheat, 
 sugar, and all sorts of dainties. Shooting them is 
 very dull sport ; they flush lazily, and a tailor might 
 bring them down with his goose. 
 
 THE GREBE. 
 
 This is a scion of the diver family, and ducks 
 more adroitly than any of his seed or generation. 
 It seems to anticipate the flash of a gun ; so that 
 shooting at them will be conceived a nice operation. 
 The large grebes Colonel Hawker thinks worth shoot- 
 ing for sake of their skins, "which -make excellent 
 tippets and travelling caps." 
 
 THE CURLEW. 
 
 The true system of shooting this bird, is always to 
 have a second gun in reserve if double, so much the 
 better ; because, if you wing him, he makes a great 
 disturbance, and brings all his mates about you. You 
 will get much nearer them than you did to the indi- 
 
238 SHOOTING THE COOT, THE OXBIRD, &C. 
 
 vidual you wounded. In working* up to curlews, 
 contrive to keep close to the land, and well under 
 cover of it. 
 
 THE COOT. 
 
 As this bird is not worth having when dead, it 
 will not be required that we give instructions for 
 shooting it. His chief value is on ponds, where he 
 is very attractive to all kinds of wild fowl. The 
 reason is said to be, that he acts as a centinel while 
 the other birds sleep their custom in mid-day. 
 
 THE OXBIRD. 
 
 The Oxbirds frequent many of the coasts of 
 England in perfect clouds at certain seasons of the 
 winter, so to speak, particularly during white 
 frosts. In August, when it is stormy, they are very 
 tame, not at all taking offence if you kill a dozen or 
 so of their company. These, the gallant colonel 
 already quoted says, are no doubt young birds. This 
 is capital sport for a schoolboy, he adds ; because, if 
 one or two are " stopped," the rest are sure to pitch 
 down with or near them, as thick as they can possibly 
 stow together. Then is your time, oh ingenuous 
 youth ! " have at the brown of 'em." 
 
 THE REDWING. 
 
 This bird only comes among us in winter ; and, 
 unless the weather be hard, he is a particularly shy 
 guest. When a flock of redwings alight, they have 
 
NATUKAL HISTOEY OF THE DOTTEEEL. 239 
 
 their regular scouts posted ; and, without great care, 
 getting near the main body is out of the question. 
 
 THE FIELD FAEE. 
 
 Fieldfares also arrive as heralds of foul weather, 
 and are rather more accessible than the redwing. 
 They are to be shot both singly, among copses and in 
 hedgerows, and also in flocks on the ground, where 
 they pitch to feed on the grain shed during the 
 harvest. They feed also in meadows, and, like the 
 domestic thrush and blackbird, on almost all kinds of 
 berries. 
 
 THE LAEK. 
 
 This least of the tribes that come under the 
 shooter's notice, in snow and severe weather assem- 
 bling in vast flocks, and now and then affords him 
 a large return for his powder and shot. With a 
 long gun arid lots of dust shot, he shall put a dish 
 upon his table that will enable him to understand 
 the value the luxurious Romans set upon singing 
 birds. The larks of our South Downs are very pretty 
 imitations of the Theban beccaftcos. 
 
 The Dotterel. The genus Charadrius, while 
 presenting some generic similarities of plumage with 
 the plover family, differs in its maritime habits, 
 shorter structure, arid in that it has no spotted 
 markings of feathers. 
 
 The Dotterel Plover of British authors (Cliara- 
 drius marinellus) is a breeding visitant of Great Bri- 
 
240 
 
 THE DOTTEREL. 
 
 tain. It is rare in Ireland, nor have we near so 
 many of these birds on the mountains of Cumberland 
 and Westmoreland that we formerly could boast. 
 However, there they still breed, as also in parts of 
 
 THE UOITEKEL. 
 
 Scotland. We extract from a careful observer of 
 these birds, Mr. Heysham of Carlisle, the pith of an 
 interesting account of their habits. He says, they 
 congregate in their various resorts about the middle 
 or end of May, where they remain together some days, 
 and then retreat to the mountains to breed ; always 
 in the vicinity of the lakes ; choosing the more inac- 
 cessible summits, and those, in especial, covered with 
 the " woolly frieze moss," TricJiostomwn lanuginosum. 
 In these high places they make no nests, but choose 
 
THE DOTTEREL. 241 
 
 a well-covered ground cavity, where it is sheltered by 
 some rocky fragment. 
 
 The hills of Scotland are also favourite resorts of 
 the dotterel. Although it is known with us in some 
 numbers as a spring and summer visitant, we know 
 nothing of its winter quarters. It lays three eggs, 
 and feeds upon insects, and lucky the mortal of epi- 
 curean gusto who sees before him a dish of these 
 dotterel. A propos of the bird as a table delicacy, and 
 in conjunction with our remark that its winter habits 
 are unknown, and its migration never noticed, we 
 give Captain Lacy's spicy anecdote : " The sudden 
 departure of the dotterel tribe, alike remarkable for 
 rarity, beauty of plumage, and excellent flavour, may 
 sometimes be most satisfactorily accounted for, without 
 the interposition of a Yarrell or a Waterton. Some 
 years ago, a friend of mine had the good fortune to 
 fall in with a small ' trip ' of these birds, of which he 
 secured two couples, and sent them as a present to 
 his Grace the Archbishop of York, from whom he 
 received that urbane reply for which his grace is so 
 remarkable. At the period of their arrival at Bishop- 
 thorpe, his grace was from home, but sent strict 
 orders for them to be kept in their feathers, the 
 dotterel being a bird whose plumage he had never 
 seen. It so happened that his grace was then about 
 to hold an ordination, and, therefore, resolved that 
 these choice morgeaux should appear at his table on 
 the occasion. The candidates were numerous, and 
 among them was one who had been educated at 
 
242 THE DOTTEREL. 
 
 St. Bees, where, it is said, the vernacular and the 
 polish differ a shade or two from those same at Oxford. 
 At table it fell to St. Bees' lot to sit opposite these 
 two couple of dots, and as a stiff examination under 
 Wrangham was never known to improve the appetite 
 for dinner, St. Bees did not feel disposed to peck. 
 At length, however, a savoury exhalation, from the 
 well frothed up quartet, having assailed his olfactories, 
 he commenced operations in good earnest. Very 
 shortly afterwards a gentleman on his right, with a 
 look but few could have misinterpreted, politely in- 
 vited St. Bees to partake of the dish he was carving. 
 "No, no ! " replied our new made Aurora Borealis, as 
 he forked the fourth dotterel on his plate, "no, thank 
 ye, I'll stick to t' little burds ! " 
 
 Dotterel occasionally visit Tees Bay, and rather 
 more frequently the shores of the Humber. Their 
 note is a piping whistle. They are excessively 
 cautious, and fond of their young in the manner of 
 the lapwing : meeting the intruder, which, if a dog, 
 they will flutter before, like the partridge, feigning to 
 be lame, and returning by that sweeping circling 
 flight common to their tribe. 
 
 The Ringed Dotterel (Charadrius iliaticula, 
 Linn.). Ringed Plover, or Dotterel, or Sea Lark of 
 British authors. 
 
 This chiefly maritime bird may, by good luck, be 
 found by the sportsman on the sandy and gravelly 
 shores of our islands. It resides the whole year in 
 our climates ; and is a lively little creature, with 
 
THE DOTTEREL. 243 
 
 plumage, remarkably shaded, of chaste and delicate 
 tintings. It deposits its eggs among the shingles 
 in some naturally-formed cavity, out of the reach 
 of the tide. The food of this bird, it may be seen, 
 is thus always within reach at the recess of the waves. 
 
 THE KINGED DOTTEREL. 
 
 The whistle of dotterel is a shrill and sad note ; that, 
 being almost incessant, betrays their presence long 
 before they are seen. Indeed, their sober plumage so 
 harmonizes with rock and stone, sea, and sky, and 
 sea-weed, by which they are surrounded, that it is 
 difficult to distinguish the animate from the inani- 
 mate portions of the creation. In such situations 
 they pursue an active and bustling career, either at 
 work pursuing their food, or sitting perched on the 
 rocks, or squatting on the coast in innumerable quan- 
 
244 THE DOTTEEEL. 
 
 titles. Although, however, we mention their mari- 
 time resorts, as the most usual stations of these birds, 
 they are, by no means, their only ones. Along the 
 shores of rivers they are occasionally found to breed ; 
 choosing the loose pebbly ground for that purpose, or 
 the sand-beds of the water-courses. They often occur 
 inland ten, fifteen, or twenty miles distance from 
 the sea-coasts ; more especially in several of the 
 eastern counties of England. Like the common dot- 
 terel, they often exhibit extreme fear at the approach 
 of strangers, using every bird-like artifice to relieve 
 their broods from the unwelcome intruder. Their 
 eggs are few, of a greenish ash colour. We subjoin a 
 description of the plumage of this noisy, numerous, 
 and pretty class of the genus Charadrius. The chief 
 peculiarity is a chin and collar of pure white encir- 
 cling the neck, followed by one of black, passing into 
 the brown of the upper parts of the plumage. The 
 lower parts are a clean white ; some portions of the 
 wings are grey brown ; others, clove brown ; and tips 
 of quills and secondaries white ; the tail brown, with 
 a clouded band ; the bill yellow, with a black tip ; the 
 legs yellow. We have remarked many slight varieties 
 of tintings, especially during the gayer season of 
 incubation. 
 
 The Little Ringed Dotterel (Gharadrius minor). 
 The Little Ringed Plover of British authors. 
 
 Mr. Yarrell describes this rare bird as an occa- 
 sional guest in our island, although we cannot but 
 
 deem it is often shot without remark. Jardine says : 
 
 . . i/ 
 
THE DOTTEREL. 245 
 
 "As a British bird, this interesting species rests on a 
 single specimen procured by Mr. Henry Doubleday ; 
 it was taken at Shoreham, in Sussex. The habits of 
 this dotterel become interesting to the ornithologist, 
 as being somewhat at variance with the others, fre- 
 quenting the banks of rivers in preference to the 
 coast ; but, like the others, it lays its eggs upon the 
 sand, without any attempt at a nest. From the very- 
 young state of Mr. Doubleday 's specimen, it is con- 
 jectured that it may have been bred in England, and. 
 if so, we may yet find the species as an occasional 
 visitant ; though, perhaps, the character of the banks 
 of the rivers is not such as will suit its habits." 
 
 Charadrius Cantianus. The Kentish Dotterel, 
 or Plover of British authors. 
 
 This species is closely linked with our ringed 
 dotterel, and distinguished only by its inferior bulk, 
 and by its feathered markings. Its habits appear to 
 be the same with the larger dotterel, and it associates 
 with it when thrown into the same localities. It 
 breeds with us ; is known in Sussex, Kent, Norfolk, 
 Essex, in the marshy districts, and on the sandy and 
 gravel beaches of the coasts. Its geographical range 
 is somewhat extensive, although not common over 
 Europe, and not known, that we are aware, either in 
 Scotland or Ireland. In the plumage of this bird 
 the collar round its neck is interrupted; there is a 
 great deal of yellow brown in the plumage ; the back 
 and wings are hair brown ; shafts of feathers deeper 
 in tint ; the crown yellow brown ; nape the same ; and 
 u 2 
 
246 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HUFF AND REEVE. 
 
 much white about the wings, and tail ; while German 
 specimens of this bird have been marked with a less 
 yellow brown, black bill, legs black also. Its man- 
 ner of running along the sands or shingles, with its 
 head drawn down close on the shoulders, is very 
 peculiar ; but is similar to that of the sanderling. 
 
 THE RT'FF. 
 
 The Ruff and Reeve (Machetes pugnax, Cuvier). 
 
 This little bird, sumamed the Fighter, takes after 
 the Grallatores, both in pugnacity, and the remarkable 
 natural wattle and exuberant plumage of its throat 
 and neck. 
 
 These birds are found in England in the fenny 
 districts, where they breed ; and are met with, in the 
 spring and autumn, in other parts of Britain ; about 
 the end of August most frequently in Scotland, in 
 
THE RUFF AND REEVE, 
 
 247 
 
 the mosses and salt marshes, as stragglers passing 
 onwards to the moors. On the Frith of Forth, on 
 the Northumberland coast, and on the shores of the 
 Solway, they are occasionally frequent. The vast 
 numbers that formerly thronged our own country are 
 no more to be seen. Population, and the necessity of 
 
 THE UEEVK. 
 
 drained civilised abodes, have compelled this singular 
 tribe to forsake their olden haunts ; and it is to be 
 feared the time will come when the ruff shall be but 
 a tradition of our sportsmen, and an adornment of 
 our museums. A writer of the last century thus 
 describes their amount in some islands surrounded 
 with sedgy moors, where men seldom resort : " I 
 have often seen the ground so strewed with eggs and 
 nests (ruffs and plovers) that one could scarce take a 
 step without treading upon one of them." The males 
 
248 THE RUFF AND REEVE. 
 
 lose their sexual appendage when the breeding season 
 is over. The ruff and the reeve are taken in nets 
 ahout thirty or forty yards in length. In the Isle of 
 Ely and the Lincolnshire fens they were formerly 
 prodigiously abundant. They would arrive about the 
 end of April, and continue till the latter days of 
 August. These nets are supported by sticks, " at an 
 angle of forty-five degrees," placed upon dry grounds, 
 or very low watered ones, not far from reeds. Here 
 the fowler conceals himself, and the birds are enticed 
 by stale or stuffed birds to come under the nets. As 
 soon as he perceives the success of his artifice, he 
 pulls a string, they are enclosed ; and often godwits, 
 grebes, knots, and plovers, share the fate of the ruff 
 and reeve. The mode of fattening the latter for the 
 table is by stuffing with boiled wheat, hemp-seed, 
 sugar, or bread and milk. During the process they 
 are kept in a dark room, where the very acme of their 
 fatness is to be observed, or they are apt to fall away 
 in a day or two. If ever so little light is let into 
 their dark prisons, these little creatures immediately 
 do battle with each other ; nor will they leave off 
 while life is left. " This died for love, and that for 
 glory," may the disconsolate fattener say, as he picks 
 up the dead bodies, and retires with the slain. 
 
 Colonel Montague thus describes their combats in 
 a wild state : "In the spring the ruffs hill, as it is 
 termed, that is, they assemble upon a rising spot of 
 ground, contiguous to where the species prepare to 
 deposit their eggs ; then they take their stand at a 
 
THE RUFF AND REEVE. 249 
 
 small distance from each other, and contend for the 
 females. This hill, or place of resort for love and 
 battle, is sought for hy the fowler, who, from habit, 
 discovers it by the birds having trodden the turf 
 somewhat bare ; though not in a circle, as usually 
 described." 
 
 We had occasion to remark, that although the 
 pugnacious disposition of the ruff never ceased in 
 confinement, it increased with the growth of the 
 long feathers of the neck in spring, when the least 
 movement of either from their usual stand, provoked 
 a battle. Their actions in fighting are similar to 
 those of the game-cock, the head is lowered, and the 
 bill is held in a horizontal direction ; the ruff, indeed 
 every feather, more or less distended; the former 
 sweeping the ground as a shield, to defend the more 
 tender parts, the auricles erected, and the tail partly 
 spread; upon the whole, assuming a most ferocious 
 aspect. When either could obtain a firm hold with 
 the bill, a leap succeeded, accompanied with a stroke 
 of the wing, but they rarely injured each other. 
 
 Where gregariously assembled among other spe- 
 cies, the ruff is known by the greater length of the 
 legs. The breeding plumage is scarcely ever similar 
 in any two of these birds. Reddish oranges and 
 yellow whites, clove brown and black, deeply shaded 
 in glossy purple, are the chief tintings of their beau- 
 tiful and varying plumage ; for the rest, too well 
 known by the fen sportsman to be specifically de- 
 scribed. They are from nine to eleven inches high 
 
250 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE GREBE 
 
 when erect. The reeve is often of more rufous tints, 
 with more black and brown in the shadings. The 
 feathers are strikingly indented with dark markings. 
 The reeve is considerably less than her mate in size. 
 After the warty excrescence has left the ruff, its hues 
 become very similar to some of the true snipes and 
 sandpipers. 
 
 THE GREBE. 
 
 The Grebe, or Greve. As this bird is frequently 
 brought down by the gunner, it is not misplaced in 
 our pages. It is a link between the web-footed tribe 
 and the Gallinules and Coots. It is much larger than 
 
THE GREBE. 251 
 
 either of the latter. Its legs appear formed only for 
 swimming ; like those of the former class, they are 
 almost hid in the under parts of the hird : the toes are 
 short, fringed, and finny. The wings have somewhat 
 the appearance of being clipped sideways ; and thus 
 it seems as little formed for rising in the air as for 
 walking on land. Its hahits entirely assimilate with 
 its formation. The appetites and habits of this 
 bird claim affinity with the web-footed class ; for it 
 preys upon fish, and passes its existence swimming 
 and diving, just exhibiting the head above, and 
 darting completely under, water, at the least appear- 
 ance of clanger. It is very shy, and very difficult to 
 be shot. It occurs in Wales and the north-western 
 counties of England, where it is found to breed among 
 the reeds and flags of the picturesque meres of those 
 districts. The plumage is for the most part white 
 and black, with shadings. The nests are made to 
 float on the tops of the reeds and rushes of the 
 shallow pools it best loves to frequent, and are only 
 supported by the strength of the creeping roots of 
 the marginal weeds. The grebe was, some time 
 back, a more numerous class than at present. It 
 was greatly sought after for the furry down of its 
 breast, which presents the most silvery gloss, and of 
 a hue more silken than that of Genoa velvet. As, 
 where once it settles its abode, there it continues till 
 its extirpation, however much disturbed, it may be 
 imagined that not much difficulty occurred in finding 
 its haunt and securing the bird (although of a wary 
 
252 NATURAL HISTOBY OF 
 
 nature). The female is much attached to her young, 
 and seeks out, with indefatigable research, the small 
 eels and fry of river fish, that are within her scope, 
 for her hungry brood ; after which she will conduct 
 them to the nest under her wings, or even, it is said, 
 upon her back. At the time of incubation, the glossed 
 down of their breasts is entirely wanting. Of this 
 bird may truly be said, what the poet has falsely sung 
 of the woodland tribe of song-birds : 
 
 " Chaste are their instincts, faithful is their fire ; 
 No foreign beauty tempts to false desire. 
 The snow-white vesture and the glittering crown, 
 The simple plumage, or the glossy T dovvn, 
 Prompts not their love. The patriot bird pursues 
 His well-acquainted tints and kindred hues." 
 
 The counties of Shropshire and Cheshire were for- 
 merly the most plentifully supplied with the grebe, 
 or greve. 
 
 The Common Curlew (Scolopax arquata. Nume- 
 nius arquata}. In our enumeration of the different 
 game and water-birds of the British islands, we have 
 thought it unnecessary to class every variety of the 
 different species. Few sporting writers give correct 
 denominations to the different links of the great 
 families of British birds. They mingle the Long- 
 beak, and some of the Totani, with the Snipe family ; 
 more accordantly with the provincial customs of the 
 counties to which the particular species resort, than 
 with ornithological truth. The Red-shank, or Pool 
 Snipe is one of these ; the Common Totanus, or 
 
THE COMMON CUELEW. 
 
 253 
 
 Sandy Lavrock, or Sand Lark (the Common Sand- 
 piper) another, frequently mistaken. And, continu- 
 ing through the next family of the Tringce, or aquatic 
 
 THE COMMON CURLEW. 
 
 Sandpipers (the Purre, or Dunlin, the Ruff and 
 Reeve, the Knot, and other varieties of the Sand- 
 pipers), we shall constantly find one species inter- 
 mingled with another by every writer but the practi- 
 cal naturalist and true ornithologist. The Curlew 
 Sandpiper will often pass for the Purre, or Dunlin, 
 and as often for the Knot, or the Stint, while the Little 
 Stint has been described as the Ox-bird. Passing by 
 
25.4 THE COMMON CURLEW. 
 
 these several intermediates, we now come to the 
 Curlew, a well-known bird of our pastoral districts 
 and sub-alpine heaths. It is a frequent inhabit-' 
 ant of Scotland, where in the north, even to Shet- 
 land and the Orkneys, it breeds. Its European 
 range is northward, Norway, Sweden, the Feroe 
 Islands, and Iceland. Curlews are known in China, 
 in the south of Africa, and in the East. 
 
 The generic characters of the family are remark- 
 able : " Bill very long, slender, slightly compressed, 
 curved, the tip nearly round, hard, the mandible pro- 
 jecting over the maxilla ; nostrils linear, lateral ; face 
 feathered ; wings rather long, pointed, spurious quill 
 rigid ; legs proportionally, of middle length ; tibice bare 
 for some length above the tarsal joint; feet rather 
 small ; toes before connected by a basal membrane ; 
 hallux articulated above the plane of the others." 
 
 The curlew breeds inland, and resorts to the 
 maritime coasts in the cold season. The curlew's 
 scream, or shrill whistle, is, perhaps, better known 
 than most of the calls of the aquatic birds. They are 
 a noisy, brave, and somewhat pugnacious tribe. When 
 the breeding season has commenced, the heath, or 
 moor, or sheep-walk, is alive with these creatures 
 ere the first faint streak of dawn has broadened in 
 colour ; and here, clamorous with the gladness of the 
 period, the males rise upon the wing, uttering their 
 singular note, and whirl along in sweeping line, 
 slowly and stately, while undisturbed. At any intru- 
 sion, they boldly fly before the face of the stranger, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WHIMBBEL CURLEW. 255 
 
 and with something like the noisy scream of the 
 gander, they will almost seem to attack him, till, in 
 their turn, intimidated by a shot or a stone. The 
 nest is a very careless one, being on the ground, 
 and placed in a dry spot either of moss or heath, even 
 in a furrow, or field of new-sown grain. Some grass, 
 or dry leaves, forms its scanty lining. The young of 
 the common curlew used to be deemed tender and ex- 
 cellent eating. The plumage of the head, neck, 
 and breast, is of a pale yellowish brown, varying in 
 depth of tint, and darkest on the crown ; the shafts 
 of the feathers of a deeper brown, which broadens at 
 the bottoms, forming those triangular markings so 
 common in birds. The underneath parts are of a 
 bluish white, but on the belly and sides the white is 
 variegated with dashes of brown. The upper parts 
 are rich- tin ted, shot with purple, the feathers cut out 
 in grey and ash-colour and white. There is a gloss 
 of purple also on the brown quills, and the axillary 
 feathers are barred with ash-colour and brown; the 
 tail is white, barred with an ashy brown tint, and 
 the bars indented with reddish white ; bill deep 
 brown at the tip, and shading into a pinky yellow : 
 legs and feet of a lead colour. 
 
 The Whimbrel Curlew of British authors (Sco- 
 lopaxplieopus, Linn. Numeniuspheopus, Latham, &c.). 
 This variety is not so common in England as the 
 last-mentioned ; nor does it breed with us. Its 
 dissimilarities with the common curlew are chiefly 
 two. Its differing call, expressed by its name of 
 
56 NATUEAL HISTOEY OF 
 
 whimbrel, and its merely passenger visits to our 
 coasts in spring, winter, and autumn, instead of the 
 constant residence of the former. It is said, that 
 in the north Scottish islands it is found to breed; 
 but little is known of its breeding stations; and 
 we think it a doubtful point, as the summer birds 
 that occasionally occur may have been stopped in 
 their passage. It was formerly, and may now be, 
 " a regular spring visitant in Ireland, in passage 
 northward, to return in autumn in much smaller 
 numbers," according to Thompson's " History." A 
 farmer, not many miles from Belfast, assured us ten 
 years ago, that he had shot some of these birds. It 
 is a pretty sight, on an unquiet day, when coming 
 upon an isolated part of the coast, to see a flock of 
 curlews and a smaller portion of whimbrels, gre- 
 gariously feeding together in the salt pools formed 
 among the shingles and sand-beds at ebb-tide. When 
 they fly, it is in the phalanx form, closely wedged 
 together, and dip low and high in the air, as though 
 they were diving in the water. The common curlew 
 skims more, with a sailing motion ; and the wings of 
 both varieties being long, pointed, and strong, are as 
 admirably adapted to fly high ; as the moor-hen; and 
 the gallinule's wings are ill constructed for length 
 or rapidity of motion. The differences of plumage 
 between these birds are slight. The crown of the 
 whimbrel is separated in the middle by a paler streak 
 of colour, the tips of the feathers being, for a broad 
 space, white, while on either side they have patches 
 
THE BALD COOT. 
 
 257 
 
 of brown to edge them. There is more white on 
 the upper part of the back of the whimbrel ; next to 
 the bill the space is white, as also the sides of the 
 head, neck, and under parts, with splashes of dark 
 brown ; the bill is of deeper hue, red at the base ; and 
 the legs are leaden grey colour, thicker, and some- 
 what shorter than in the common curlew. These 
 birds do not change their plumage at the period of 
 incubation. 
 
 THE BALD COOT. 
 
 The Coot comes under the head RallidcB ; which 
 family comprises the Rails and Crakes, the Gallinules, 
 or Water-fowls, as well as the Coot species. As the 
 Common Coot is a larger bird than the moor-hen, so 
 it chooses larger streams, and more insulated locali- 
 ties. It is more wary and less sociable. The coot is 
 
258 THE BALD COOT. 
 
 the Fulica air a of Linn., the Foulque macroule of 
 Temminck. It is found rather extensively in the 
 southern counties of England, becomes more rare 
 northward, and is altogether lost sight of in the 
 alpine regions of Scotland ; its occurrence being con- 
 fined to the neighbourhood of the smaller lochs. 
 Nevertheless, it is occasionally mentioned in the 
 Orkneys. The Bald Coot arrives in North Britain 
 the first fine spring days, and rarely stays through 
 the winter, unless an unusually mild one. Some of 
 these birds dive with the facility of the penguin kind, 
 and keep under, while hunting for their food in the 
 still waters they select par preference, for a great length 
 of time, eating, as is supposed, whatever may come 
 within their reach, pond-weed, aquatic larvae, insects, 
 &c. In the larger rivers of England they collect in im- 
 mense numbers, and are then caught by means of the 
 weirs used for catching fish, while they are searching 
 for the small fish and insectivora. At breeding sea- 
 son they become scattered in pairs, and so remain 
 until the autumn, when again they assemble together 
 in companies. Their nests are made in the river 
 rushes, or in the reeds of the plashy brakes that are 
 found near our estuaries. They are of considerable 
 size, and they use the materials within reach in their 
 construction. As we have said, the bald coot is a shy 
 bird, and, except at the season of incubation, difficult 
 of approach. It flies with its long legs outstretched 
 in its rear. The coot, it is said, weighs about twenty- 
 four ounces. Its bald forehead appears rather a con- 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE REDWING. 259 
 
 tinuation of its bill to the crown than any absence 
 of feathering ; it is of a pinky milk white, the bill 
 pinkish. The dark blackish grey of the general 
 plumage of the bird, shaded with deep black, forms a 
 striking contrast with this white space ; the under- 
 neath surface of the wings are of a glossy silver grey ; 
 the tibite are orange colour, the legs dull green. 
 The membrane of the toes scolloped out, in con- 
 tradistinction to the straight membrane of the gal- 
 linuli. The young, upon escape from the shell, are 
 duly protected with a thick covering of strong, stiff, 
 hair-like down, black everywhere but the head, where 
 it is red, or yellow red. Varieties of the plumage 
 sometimes occur. 
 
 The Redwing (Turdus iliacus, Linn.). The Red- 
 wing, like the fieldfare, visits us merely for the 
 mildness of our climate in the season of rigour. 
 It is described as about eight inches long, although 
 such as we have shot we should have deemed 
 shorter. It weighs about two ounces or more. Its 
 plumage in hue is between that of a sparrow and 
 a thrush. With us it is not melodious; but in its 
 summer abodes, where daylight for many weeks con- 
 tinues to gladden the eye, as in Norway and other 
 countries of similar latitudes, it is esteemed one of 
 the chief warblers of the forest, its note being both 
 piercing and sweet. It is known immediately from 
 the thrush by the brightness of a white mark above 
 the eyes. In olden days the redwing was esteemed 
 equal to the beccafico, and a choice morsel for a 
 
260 THE KEDWING. 
 
 Roman Emperor. It was exported to Italy, and 
 fattened for sale. This bird is neither so wild nor so 
 wary as its near neighbour, the fieldfare ; it is, how- 
 ever, sufficiently cautious, and, when flying in num- 
 bers, takes a precaution, from which we have bor- 
 rowed our stratagem in war, that of stationing out- 
 posts, or sentinels, on some eminence or tree-top, 
 to give notice of the approach of danger. 
 
 In the season of flight, as the bird-catchers call it, 
 these little creatures were formerly taken in great 
 numbers, in common with the woodlark and the 
 fieldfare, and, indeed, with all the other small green- 
 birds, by the nets and arts of the fowler. In the 
 autumn he prepares his machinery, his nets, his 
 ^r-birds, and his decoy birds. The net is from ten 
 to twelve yards long, or more, and two or three 
 wide. It is so formed, as to be easy to rise on either 
 side and encircle the birds, as any one may witness 
 who will follow the wheat-ear catcher on the Sussex 
 Downs. As birds in their passage fly against the 
 wind, the fowler lays his net to gain the wind, and if 
 it is easterly, he will lay his net as far to the west as 
 possible. His call-birds are selected carefully by the 
 sweetness and power of their notes. It appears that 
 these decoy birds never exert themselves more 
 powerfully than when thus luring the free birds of 
 their tribes into captivity. Linnets and larks, gold 
 and green finches, the bullfinch and yellow hammer, 
 the tit-lark, and a variety of others, can be used for 
 this purpose. The ^r-birds are those placed on a 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FIELD FAEE. 261 
 
 movable perch, which the fowler uplifts at will, by 
 means of a string, when he would tempt the wild 
 bird downwards. It is remarked, that when half a 
 flock have been allured into the nets by the shrill 
 jerking call of the decoys, the remainder will alight 
 near; and, far from being deterred by the circum- 
 stance, are certain to become also victims of the arti- 
 fice. Whether curiosity, love of song, or pugnacious 
 bravery, bring the wild birds so easily to the call, it 
 is impossible to determine. That it should be desire, 
 seems unlikely; for the male birds pipe: and male 
 birds are equally numerous, if not more so, than the 
 female wild ones, thus entrapped for the ladies' aviary, 
 or the epicure's table. This, however, is not the only 
 trap laid for them. As the redwings do not roost on 
 the ground, nets are often thrown over trees and 
 hedges, in which they are taken. 
 
 The Fieldfare (Turduspilaris, Linn.). This little 
 bird, of the sparrow kind, makes but a short stay in 
 our country ; is wild and tuneless, flies in flocks, and 
 is perhaps the most wary of the smaller species. In 
 Norway and Sweden, and the cold regions generally, 
 the fieldfare tunes his pipe as harmoniously as many of 
 the little warblers, although with us so dull and insipid 
 a bird. Fieldfares migrate to our coasts, tempted 
 hither by the mildness of our winters, and the variety 
 of berries our trees and hedge-rows supply, which 
 form the staple of their food. The rigorous season 
 past, they return to their beloved forests of maple 
 and sycamore, where they sing the live-long day, to 
 
262 
 
 THE FIELD FAKE. 
 
 reward the partners of their cares in the laborious 
 season of incubation ; building their nests in the 
 hedges or low woods, with symmetry and research. 
 These they carefully conceal by those instinctive arts 
 so common to the smaller tribes; bending twigs, 
 
 THE FIELDFARE. 
 
 leaves, and branches, in artful mazes, to screen them 
 from view. They lay about six bluish green eggs, 
 spotted considerably with black. 
 
 The fieldfare is from nine to ten inches long, and 
 sixteen or seventeen broad. It weighs considerably 
 more than the redwing. Its plumage is lively, and 
 its flesh not equal to its smaller neighbour above 
 
THE FIELDFARE. 263 
 
 mentioned, although a delicacy. It arrives in great 
 numbers about October ; and at first, in all the bustle 
 of settling, may be shot at without much difficulty. 
 Its back feathers are of shades of ash colour ; its head 
 of a light ash; its bill is yellowish black; and the 
 bird is immediately known from the length of its 
 mouth hairs, or whiskers. Its breast is spotted with 
 dark colours on a light ground; its rump is ash 
 colour. Its bill is slender and soft, capable only of 
 attacking berries and insects' eggs ; it is, therefore, 
 one of the large class of necessary helps to man's com- 
 fort and convenience, as it assists to destroy the ver- 
 min that infests the trees and vegetables cultivated by 
 him. The fieldfares are fattest while their autumnal 
 food still hangs on the bush, or remains on the ground ; 
 after which time they have recourse to the moist soils 
 for worms. Mr. White says, that it is rather sur- 
 prising, in the natural history of these charming 
 edibles, that being of habits nearly akin to those of 
 so many other small birds of the soft billed songster 
 tribe, such as blackbirds, thrushes, &c., they should 
 not be known to have bred together. He also observes 
 that the fieldfare roosts on the ground at night (the 
 period when the fowlers' nets are principally spread 
 for their captives over stubble and meadow), while 
 in the day-time it always perches high, on the tops of 
 the tallest trees and hedgerows. It appears that, con- 
 sidering the prodigious flocks that sometimes alight 
 on our coasts, we secure but a small quantity of these 
 birds, in comparison with the numbers captured on 
 
264 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LARK. 
 
 the continent. Whether they come to us at a 
 more wary season we do not know. However, 
 they become sufficiently tame when they suffer 
 from a deficiency of food in hard weather ; but are 
 then not so worthy the aim of the true sportsman, as 
 when they are full and fat. 
 
 The Lark (Alanda arvensis, Linn.), One of our 
 poets thus addresses this sweet warbler : 
 
 " Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 
 Bird thou never wert, 
 That from heaven, or near it, 
 
 Pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 
 Higher still and higher, 
 
 From the earth thou springest ; 
 Like a cloud of fire, 
 
 The blue deep thou wingest, 
 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 
 
 What objects are the fountains 
 
 Of thy happy strain ? 
 What fields, or waves, or mountains? 
 
 What shapes of sky or plain ? 
 What love of thy own kind ? What ignorance of pain ? " 
 
 It is, indeed, true of this bird, the favourite of the 
 skiey space, that its song is gladsome and enlivening ; 
 and that as it darts upwards, in the clear radiance of 
 dawn, its exulting and far-reaching note appears the 
 harbinger of fullest day. The lark is a salacious bird ; 
 nor is it difficult to form a hybrid between it and the 
 linnet, and other small birds. 
 
THE LARK. 265 
 
 When kept in confinement, the pipe of the lark 
 becomes harsh and piercing ; it is only when winging 
 its flight, by way of encouragement to the female, in 
 the free native air, that it possesses that bounding 
 and elastic sweetness on which poets delight to expa- 
 tiate. It is a note of confidence and security, to 
 assure his mate that no danger threatens, and that 
 he is near her, to participate and to soften her cares. 
 This diminutive species have much courage ; they are 
 often, when contending for the female, formidable to 
 each other ; but their genial desires past, they relapse 
 into timidity, or show their bravery in a different and 
 more amicable manner. We have ourselves often 
 witnessed a struggle for victory in song between two 
 of these birds ; and, indeed, with most of the thrush 
 and sparrow kind, there seems to exist a love of har- 
 mony distinct from the note of blandishment or call 
 of desire. Let a harp be placed on a lawn, and 
 played upon, and it shall prove the decoy of a num- 
 ber of grove songsters ; each little throat shall con- 
 tend with its music. A lady of our acquaintance 
 assured us that she had often been compelled to quit 
 her instrument from the noise made in rivalry by 
 these birds, who would perch on the lower branches 
 around her during their noisy efforts. The different 
 larks may be divided into the sky-lark, the wood, and 
 the titlark ; they are known from other small species 
 by the length of their heel or spur. They build their 
 nests upon the ground, thinking that sods of turf can 
 shelter and conceal them, and choosing every soil in 
 
266 NATUBAL HISTOKY OF THE WATEK-HEN. 
 
 preference to a clayey one ; they also are observed to 
 build so that every part of the nest is equally raised. 
 The edges are thatched, and slope a little outwards. 
 The lark is constant in our islands, migrating, however, 
 from one part of the country to another. It lays four 
 or five eggs, of different sizes, according to its variety, 
 of a dusky hue. Its general tints are reddish brown, 
 and in some more lively than in others, so as to be 
 almost red. On the crown of the head it bears a tuft 
 of feathers which distinguishes it from birds of its 
 class ; these it erects at will. It deposits its eggs in 
 May, although they have been seen even as late as 
 September. Dr. Latham mentions that larks are an 
 article of great importance in some of the continental 
 countries, " the duty paid at Leipsic for larks 
 amounts to twelve thousand crowns per annum, at a 
 grosch, or twopence-halfpenny, for every sixty larks." 
 It is when the song of the bird leaves it that it 
 assembles in flocks, and becomes the prey of the bird 
 catchers. The lark is a bird of passage in some 
 countries, chiefly the cold ones ; and thousands fall by 
 the way in the migrations, chiefly by the net of the 
 fowler. 
 
 Water-hen, or Moor hen, or common Gallinule of 
 British authors (Gallinul chloropus). This aquatic 
 bird is the link between the crake family and that of 
 the coots. As their wings are little formed for flight, 
 so the strong, naked legs, large feet, and long toes, 
 seem to render land and water their chief elements. 
 Indeed this species swim and dive with equal facility ; 
 
THE WATER-HEN. 
 
 267 
 
 resort to ponds, pools, and rivers, where, under cover 
 of any sort of aquatic or marsh, vegetation, their 
 breeding places may be constantly discovered, and 
 their nests found amid the reeds and roots, rather 
 high up, and sometimes six or seven feet from the 
 water, in the brushwood or willow reeds. Its habits 
 are by no means shy, and it is a beautiful creature in 
 
 THE WATER-HEN 
 
 its gayest plumage. Jardine mentions, that it will 
 even come near dwelling-places, where food is regu- 
 larly placed for it. On the least alarm, it will duck 
 its head and fore part of body under the water, and 
 then plunge into the first hole or cover of brushwood, 
 where its bill alone will be protruded above the still 
 water of its preferred localities. It is fond of perch- 
 ing on low trees or bushes ; and, on emergencies, will 
 
268 THE WATEE-HEN. 
 
 fly to some height, and seek concealment on the tops 
 of the highest trees in its vicinity. The common galli- 
 nule, or moor-hen, is abundant among the lesser lochs 
 and tarns of Scotland. Pursuit seems to paralyse the 
 faculties of this bird; as we have known it to remain, 
 as it were, fascinated by the idea of danger, squatted 
 among the vegetation, where it will suffer itself to be 
 caught without a struggle till it is in captivity. Its 
 young are numerous, and covered with a black down. 
 Jardine thus describes the feathers of the moor- 
 hen in spring : " The base of the bill, and shield on 
 the forehead, now considerably enlarged, is a bright 
 red; and contrasts well, or enlivens the deep blackish 
 grey of the head, throat, neck, and under parts : this 
 colour shades into a deep green on the upper parts, 
 at this season glossed with deep reflections, which are 
 spread on the sides of the breasts; the quills are 
 nearly pale umber brown, the outer edge of the first, 
 with the bend of the wing, white ; the tail, rounded 
 at the tip, is black, shaded into deep oil green, and 
 shows the narrow cross dark markings incident to 
 structure, seen in various incessorial birds, and in the 
 aquatic genus Plotus. On the lower part of the belly 
 and vent the feathers are tipped with greyish white, 
 which prevails more or less on the centre of these 
 parts; and on the flanks, where the oil green predo- 
 minates, the feathers are dashed with long streaks of 
 white, but those of the vent are deep black, and run 
 in upon them in an angular point ; the naked parts 
 of the tibice are bright vermillion red, shading to yel- 
 
THE WATEB-HEN. 269 
 
 low, and often appear conspicuous ; the feet and legs 
 are olive green. In the female the colours are not so 
 bright, and the frontal shield does not cover so large 
 a space." The bill is compressed, but not very short ; 
 the wings are short and concave ; the legs long. The 
 nest is made of sticks and fibres, or dry reeds ; and 
 when the hen is within it, she is swinged to and fro 
 by the action of the water and wind underneath her : 
 we have seen the nest, however, disengaged by some 
 mishap, and floating in the midst of the stream. The 
 eggs are sharp at one end, and of whitish green 
 colour, spotted with red. The water-hen weighs from 
 fifteen ounces upwards. This is the Poule deau 
 ordinaire of Temminck. The gallinule is of some- 
 what dissimilar habits to those we have mentioned, 
 when found in the solitary Scottish moors untenanted 
 but by the feathered tribe and wild animals. Here 
 she is not so easily alarmed as where breeding in the 
 vicinity of gentlemen's mansions ; but when once dis- 
 turbed, has been known never again to resort to the 
 same locality, but at once seeks a new abode, where, 
 summer and winter, she will continue until destroyed 
 by the sportsman, or the more numerous enemies of 
 the brute creation, to whose invasion she is exposed 
 without any means of protection. The falcon, the kite, 
 the buzzard, the otter, are the most usual despoilers 
 of the water-hens. As they cannot fly far, they are 
 more defenceless than most other of the aquatic 
 birds. 
 
 w 2 
 
THE WATER SPANIEL. 
 
 The Spaniel (Canis extrarius). Water Spaniel of 
 British authors. Mr. Whittaker thus enumerates the 
 five original races of British dogs : The Great House- 
 hold Dog; the Greyhound ; the Bulldog; the Terrier; 
 and the Large Slow-hound. 
 
 Of these it will be seen the spaniel is not one. 
 Jardine justly remarks, that in this list the races are 
 confounded ; for the great household dog is with him 
 the mastiff, with no powers of scent, and different 
 from the bulldog, to whom he attributes great keen- 
 ness of nose. He looks upon the greyhound as the 
 Vertagm, or British Ver. Track., while some writers 
 only deem it the lurcher. The British terrier he 
 looks upon as differing from the crooked legged turn- 
 spit of Europe, specified by Greek writers. Sir W. 
 Jardine says, that the Canis tuscus, praised by Neme- 
 sianus, was identical with our water- spaniel. On 
 various Eoman monuments this dog is evidently 
 figured. The spaniel tribe is a numerous one, and 
 variously designated, from the beautiful little creature 
 known as Charles the Second's, or the Duke of. Nor 
 folk's, breed, to the handsome springer, by some 
 deemed the most serviceable shooting companion to 
 the gunner, of the entire sporting races. The springer 
 and the cocker are the only two dogs, legitimately 
 called spaniels, used in wood and water craft : albeit, 
 some call the smaller Newfoundland breed, spaniels. 
 
NATUEAL HISTOKY OF THE SPANIEL. 271 
 
 Printed authorities vary considerably when making 
 the definition of the spaniel. One says, " The 
 cocker, or gun spaniel, of true perfect breed, is of one 
 general or whole colour, either black, or black tan, 
 commonly called King Charles's breed; or red in 
 different shades, paler or deeper : " and another says, 
 " The true English bred spaniel differs but little from 
 the setter, save in size." 
 
 Of all species, the spaniel has the truest attach- 
 ment to the human race, and is of the gayest as well as 
 the most affectionate disposition. In form it is that of 
 the small setter; the colours of the silky hair being 
 either black and white, liver-coloured and white, pied, 
 brown, or black. The so-termed water spaniel is best 
 known by its alertness in hunting and swimming in 
 the water ; its hair, also, is a little harder and stiffer 
 than the land spaniel. The springer, too well known 
 as the gun spaniel to need specification, is usually 
 smaller than the water spaniel (a dog greatly used in 
 decoys); its shape is particularly graceful, and its 
 liveliness renders it a great favourite with gunners 
 used to this breed : it is generally a white-haired dog, 
 with rich red spots and black muzzle ; while the 
 cocker is oftenest black, and is a smaller dog, with 
 shorter legs, and shorter in the back. It has also a 
 shorter and rounder head, and is altogether of more 
 compact frame and make ; the ears long and silky, as 
 well as the tail and legs, and the hair all more curly 
 than the larger spaniel. King Charles's spaniel is 
 supposed to be the parent of the cocker breed of dogs. 
 
272 THE SPANIEL. 
 
 The Blenheim is almost similar in appearance to the 
 latter, but the cocker's black coat is relieved in the 
 Blenheim (or, as it is indifferently called, the Marl- 
 borough, or Pyrami, of Buffon) by red spots above the 
 eyes, and on the breast and feet. He has a shorter 
 back, and is fuller in the nose and palate. The 
 Bichon of Buffon, Canis Melitceus, is the most ancient 
 of the diminutive spaniel races, and the huge Alpine 
 spaniel the most sagacious and courageous. From 
 very ancient times the spaniel breed has engaged 
 much attention from sportsmen. In the East, the 
 greatest possible pains were taken to propagate them ; 
 for as all game was brought down by the gun, or in 
 decoys, so these races were considered the only ones 
 fitted for these uses. The spaniel race is somewhat 
 famous in histoiy. The highest order of distinction 
 in Denmark was founded in honour of a dog of this 
 kind, named Wildbrat, that remained faithful to the 
 sovereign of that kingdom, when the human race had 
 deserted him in adversity. The motto of this order, 
 now called the Order of the Elephant, is, " Wildbrat 
 was Faithful;" and the instinctive fidelity of this 
 species is furthermore historically specified in the 
 account given of Lodebroch, a prince of Denmark, 
 who was driven on the English coast, with his hawks 
 and his dogs, and was taken up as a piratical spy, 
 and brought before Edmund, king of the East Angles. 
 Edmund, however, was soon undeceived, and Lode- 
 broch became a great favourite with him, on account 
 of his skill in hawking and hunting. He was at last 
 
THE SPANIEL, 73 
 
 murdered by a falconer jealous of his favour, who con- 
 cealed his remains in the woods. None knew his fate, 
 till a dog, worn by famine and grief, came to Edmund 
 and fawned upon him with expressive gestures ; and 
 the king followed him to the spot where the body lay. 
 The murder was avenged, as it was thought, by the 
 enforcement of the Lex Talionis. The falconer was 
 put into Lodebroch's boat, and committed to the 
 mercy of the waves. Unfortunately, the purposes of 
 justice were not, in this case, achieved, for the wretch 
 was borne to Denmark, when, to avoid the torture, 
 he accused Edmund as the assassin of Lodebroch, and 
 was thus the occasion of the first Danish invasion. 
 The instances of attachment recorded of spaniels are 
 most numerous. They will sometimes take a liking 
 for kittens, and even birds ; but their general fondness 
 is for the human race. There is one affecting example 
 related of a spaniel in Paris, in 1799. It was so 
 severe a frost that the Seine was thickly frozen over ; 
 but a thaw had commenced, when a number of youths 
 chose still to continue the sport of skating. One, 
 named Beaumavoir, a young student, and the pos- 
 sessor of a small spaniel, had only gone on the 
 treacherous ice, near the quay of the Hotel des 
 Monnaies, when it broke, and his body disappeared 
 The small spaniel, by his frantic grief, gave the 
 alarm, but no assistance could be rendered ; and the 
 poor creature's howlings only served to warn others 
 from the unsafe spot. That day, and the following 
 night, the animal remained to watch for his master's 
 
274 THE SPANIEL. 
 
 re-appearance ; and still, the day after, he was at his 
 post. Some persons made him a bed of straw, and 
 some brought him food, but to these testimonials of 
 kindness and admiration he remained insensible, 
 rejecting both. He would run backwards and for- 
 wards, in great distress, upon the ice, but always 
 came back to the same sleeping place. He bit a 
 soldier who would have forced him away, who, fearing 
 that he was mad, fired at and wounded him. People 
 came in crowds to gaze at the poor spaniel ; and, at 
 last, a woman prevailed upon it to have its wound 
 dressed. She carried it home with her, and we 
 believe succeeded, after a lapse of time, in making it 
 again comfortable and happy. Of the thousand pet 
 spaniels of idle ladies, we sometimes hear remark- 
 able accounts of their cunning in eluding orders, given 
 before them, to which they were averse, relative to 
 their personal treatment. 
 
 Springers and cockers are made use of in grey- 
 hound coursing; but the cocker, who hunts closer, 
 and is not so full of bustle as the springer, is of the 
 more utility to the sportsman. Colonel Hawker 
 remarks, with regard to spaniels, that they are, nine 
 times out of ten, so badly broken in, as in general to 
 be only fit to drive a large w r ood; but, if taught to 
 keep always within half a gun-shot, they are the best 
 dogs in existence for working among hassocks and 
 briars. They should be trained very young, or they 
 require an unmerciful degree of flogging ; and it is 
 sometimes advisable, at first, to hunt them with a 
 
THE SPANIEL. 275 
 
 fore foot tied up in the collar. We subjoin another 
 hint of a valuable experience : " Spaniels for phea- 
 sant and cock shooting cannot be too strong, too short 
 upon the leg, or have too much courage. To be in a 
 perfect state of discipline, they must follow a hare no 
 further than whilst it is in view ; when once put into 
 covert, must not quit it to range in the fields, which 
 some slippery ones will do ; and must be in their 
 places twisting round every stub with agility, and 
 possess such fineness of nose, that neither woodcock 
 nor pheasant can escape their search." It will be 
 perceived, that if sportsmen often become enthusiasts 
 in favour of this sort of dog over every other, it can 
 be no easy affair to train up a team of spaniels. One 
 or two must be taught to fetch and carry, or, as some 
 think, but one in a team ; else, in disputing which 
 shall carry the game, they will break it. For a gene- 
 ral summary of desirable form in the spaniel, take 
 this : They should stand on short, bony legs, be 
 powerfully made all over, with a speaking eye, a large 
 head, and large, long, drooping ears. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII, 
 
 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
 
 SHOOTING THE WILD SWAN. 
 
 " That lovely thing, 
 Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat." 
 
 FOE many reasons, logical as well as fanciful, this 
 may be called " the poetry of sport." Poetry is 
 scarce far more rare than the journeymen of Par- 
 nassus have an idea and so is wild swan shooting ; 
 and can imagination conceive anything more sub- 
 limated above powder and patent shot work, in 
 general, than assisting at the obsequies of a prima 
 donna of the feathered choir, who pours out her life 
 in ravishing harmonies ? The reader, peradventure, 
 shall doubt the popular rumour, that this bird makes 
 her exit " to soft music: " presently we will deal with 
 his suspicion. 
 
 It need hardly be premised, that the chances of 
 shooting wild swans are " few and far between," even 
 

SHOOTING THE WILD SWAN. 277 
 
 to the most constant fowlers. Nevertheless, when 
 the accident does arrive, tbe swans appear to " come 
 not single spies but in battalions." Colonel Hawker 
 tells us, " On one occasion I knocked down eight at 
 a shot, seven old ones and one brown one, and they 
 averaged nineteen pounds each;" and at Dungeness 
 something of the same extent was done by somebody, 
 whose name is not preserved. When swans are to be 
 met with in these islands, it is under circumstances 
 most unfavourable to them. They seldom or never 
 are found among us, except when overtaken by the 
 rigour of an extremely severe winter, and then their 
 flight is very low; and, when they alight, they are 
 very easily approached. Their size, too, renders them 
 a mark very difficult to miss; so that when the 
 shooter gets within distance, he can hardly avoid 
 killing his bird, though he may not find it quite so 
 easy to " bag" him. When in flight, the swan should 
 be shot at beneath the wing ; when sitting, take him 
 in the head. Always shoot at a hooper from behind, 
 so as to throw your shot under the feathers; they 
 will turn almost anything short of slugs, if fired at on 
 the surface. Colonel Hawker gives a very comical 
 picture of himself and his man going about to circum- 
 vent wild swans on the coast of Hants. Having made 
 out a sort of Lilliputian iceberg, all stuck over with 
 these interesting specimens of ornithology, he floated 
 towards them in his punt, " having previously covered 
 myself and my man with clean white linen, and a 
 white nightcap." The swans must have had strong 
 
278 SHOOTING THE WILD SWAN. 
 
 nerves to stand the approach of such apparitions. 
 We doubt whether either the master or man would 
 have stood their ground had they seen a brace of 
 figures stealing upon them through the grey dawn 
 " in clean white linen and white nightcaps." 
 
 Upon the vexed question of the music made by 
 the dying swan, Mr. Colquhoun has an anecdote so 
 interesting, and so simple withal, that we cannot 
 resist transferring it to our pages. He has already 
 related an incident of his early wild fowl shooting 
 career, and thus proceeds : 
 
 ' k Another stormy mid- winter day, a farmer sent 
 to let us know that a flock of wild swans had appeared 
 off the shore. My brother and I instantly started 
 with our duck guns. When we had reconnoitred with 
 our glasses from a rising ground, we saw that the 
 flock were resting some hundred yards from the land, 
 but had little doubt, from the high wind, that they 
 would soon seek its shelter. We accordingly chose 
 different stations, and crawling to them with the 
 utmost caution, waited patiently for upwards of an 
 hour. At last the swans, by imperceptible de- 
 grees, and much turning and wheeling, neared the 
 shore, opposite my brother ; but the water being 
 shallow, they began to feed as soon as their long 
 necks could sound the bottom. He was thus forced 
 to rush down to the edge, and take the distant shot. 
 One lay badly wounded : had the wind been blowing 
 towards the shore, the swan was so disabled, he could 
 not have made head against it, but as it blew side- 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WILD SWAN. 279 
 
 ways, the creature managed to paddle itself out into 
 the waves, every now and then uttering its wild, 
 piping cry. There was no boat nearer than a mile ; 
 we, however, set off full speed, and with a shock- 
 headed urchin at the helm, launched into the deep. 
 The wind was blowing a perfect gale, the waves lash- 
 ing over, wetting us to the skin ; and every time we 
 dianged our course, we were in danger of being 
 swamped. We had almost given up hope, especially 
 as the white foam of the bursting waves was so exactly 
 like the object of our search as to prevent our dis- 
 tinguishing it at any distance, when the ' gilly ' at the 
 helm called out, ' I hear him.' All eyes were strained 
 in every direction, and the poor swan was at last seen 
 rising over the billows like the spirit of the tempest. 
 There was much difficulty, and some danger, in get- 
 ting it safe on board, and, in all probability, we 
 should never have perceived it, had it not betrayed 
 itself by its dying song." 
 
 The Wild Swan, or Hooper, of British authors 
 (Anas cygnus). It is supposed by some eminent 
 naturalists of the present day, that there are several 
 varieties of the wild swan, and a couple, or more, of 
 the hooper. 
 
 In three killed by Colonel Hawker at a shot (of 
 the latter variety), the space above the bill was of 
 bright yellow. In another place he also killed three 
 at a shot, and of these the space above the bills was 
 pale flesh colour. The Linnaean Society have disco- 
 vered another distinct species, smaller, and internally 
 
280 
 
 THE WILD SWAN. 
 
 different from the common hooper, which they have 
 named after Mr Bewick. 
 
 This bird is of internal conformation very differ- 
 ent from the tame swan. It is usually less than a 
 fourth of the size, weighing from thirteen to twenty- 
 one pounds, the average being about sixteen pounds 
 
 
 THE WILD SWAN. 
 
 in the wild, and twenty upwards in the tame, bird. 
 But these are slight differences compared to that of 
 its plumage, and, above all, to those found upon dis- 
 section. 
 
 In opposition to the general theory on the subject 
 of its vocality, we have Col. Hawker's testimony, that 
 
THE WILD SWAN. 281 
 
 the swan possesses at least two notes of the musical 
 gamut, even in a domesticated state. Who can there- 
 fore assert that the species may not have degenerated? 
 that Plato and Aristotle, and Diodorus Siculus were 
 not correct in their belief of the swan's vocality? 
 Hear what Pendasius says on the subject, that he 
 had often heard swans sweetly singing in the Man- 
 tuan lake, as he rowed up and down in his boat. 
 Olaus Warmius, too, the learned, declared there was in 
 his family a very honest young man, John Rostorph, a 
 student in divinity, who upon oath solemnly affirmed, 
 that once, in the territory of Drontheim, in Norway, he 
 was standing upon the sea-shore early in the morning, 
 when he heard a most musical murmur, composed of 
 sweet whistlings and pleasant sounds ; and looking 
 about him, and climbing to the top of a certain pro- 
 montory, he there espied an infinite flock of wild 
 swans in a bay, producing this most delightful har- 
 mony, the sweetest in his life-time he had ever heard. 
 This is, at least, as pleasant a fiction to read as one 
 of La Fontaine's fables ; and well doth the poetical 
 moralist make use of it, who contrasts the last song 
 of the swan with the hymn of jubilee on the lips of 
 the good dying man. Reverting to prosaic fact, we 
 find the hooper's cry to be particularly wild and dis- 
 agreeable, and harsh enough in its clangor to banish 
 the least notion of the melody of its species. The 
 wild swan is found in the Hebrides all the year 
 round, as it breeds there. This very elegant bird 
 is a constant visiter, and that in large companies, to 
 
 x 2 
 
282 THE WILD SWAN. 
 
 the Irish coasts, and, indeed, to the interior of that 
 island. As we have before alluded to the written 
 rumour of its melodious quality, we can ourself assert, 
 that we have heard sounds proceeding from a flight of 
 swans vastly more harmonious than the race of water 
 fowl are in the habit of producing. They were not, 
 so far as our ear could detect, separate notes, but 
 rather a consecutive and combined harmony, an idea 
 which may be imperfectly given by comparing it with 
 the sustained tones of an organ. 
 
 It is a remarkable feature in the natural history 
 of this bird, that wherever it is found in a wild 
 state, it is white, so to speak ; or, at least, but 
 little varies from that hue, except in New Holland, 
 where it is black, or of a tint scarcely removed from 
 black. 
 
 Perhaps, in animated nature, there is not a more 
 beautiful sight than the flight of the royal family of 
 the swans. There they are, winging their stately 
 way over morasses and marshes, over lakes and lake- 
 lets, perchance from icy Siberia, or inhospitable Lap- 
 land : from Iceland or Spitzbergen, or far away from 
 the arctic and unknown regions of America, do they 
 hither come. These climes were their summer dwell- 
 ings and breeding-places, with Norway and Sweden, 
 and other ice-bound European lands ; for there the 
 sun never sets for weeks, but nurses innumerable 
 beds of insect food for their use and service. Pro- 
 fessor Wilson thus imaginatively and aptly describes 
 a flock covering the wide waters at the head of Loch 
 
THE WILD SWAN. 283 
 
 Maree, or, silent and asleep, riding at anchor around 
 Lomond's isles : 
 
 " Tis now mid-day and, lo! in that mediter- 
 ranean a flock of wild swans ! Have they dropped 
 down from the ether into the water almost as pure as 
 ether, without having once folded their wings since 
 they rose aloft to shun the insupportable northern 
 snows, hundreds of leagues beyond the storm-swept 
 Orcades ? To look at the quiet creatures, you might 
 think that they had never left the circle of that little 
 loch. There they hang on their shadows, even as if 
 asleep in the sunshine ; and now stretching out their 
 long wings how apt for flight from clime to clime ! 
 Joyously they beat the liquid radiance, till to the land 
 flapping high rises the mist, and wide spreads the 
 foam almost sufficient for a rainbow. Safe are they 
 from all birds of prey. The osprey dashes down on 
 the teal ; the great erne, or sea-eagle, pounces on the 
 mallard, as he mounts from the bulrushes before the 
 wild swans sailing, with all wings hoisted, like a fleet; 
 but osprey nor eagle dares to try his talons on that 
 stately bird, for he is bold in his beauty, and for- 
 midable as he is fair. The pinions that swim and 
 soar can also smite ; and though the one be a lover of 
 war, the other of peace, yet of these it may be said 
 
 ' The eagle he is lord above, 
 The swan is lord below ! ' 
 
 To have shot such a creature so large so white 
 so high-soaring, and on the winds of midnight 
 wafted so far, a creature that seemed not merely a 
 
284 WILD GOOSE SHOOTING. 
 
 stranger in that loch but belonging to some myste- 
 rious land in another hemisphere, whose coast ships 
 have been known to visit, driving under bare poles 
 through a month's snow-storms, was an era in our 
 lives. Once, and once only, we were involved in the 
 glory of that event. The creature had been in a 
 dream of some river or lake of Kamschatka, or ideally 
 listening 
 
 ' Across the waves' tumultuous roar, 
 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaskka's shore,' 
 
 when, guided by our good genius and our brightest 
 star, we suddenly saw him sitting asleep in all his 
 state, within gunshot, in a bay of the moonlit loch ! 
 We blew his black bill into pieces, not a feather on 
 his head but was touched; and, like a little white- 
 sailed pleasure-boat caught in a whirlwind, the wild 
 swan spun round, and then lay motionless on the 
 waters, as if all her masts had gone by the board ; 
 the mighty foreign bird, whose plumage we had never 
 hoped to touch but in a dream, lying like the ghost 
 of something that ought not to have been destroyed." 
 
 WILD GOOSE SHOOTING. 
 
 In spite of the enthusiasm displayed by the writers 
 on wild fowl shooting, in their accounts of " hair breadth 
 'scapes" their " moving accidents by flood" it reads 
 like anything but sport. There is certainly no ac- 
 counting for taste, especially the taste that takes its 
 pleasure in the mud on the Hampshire coast, or 
 
WILD GOOSE SHOOTING. 285 
 
 navigates the bay of Tees in a yacht which resembles 
 nothing so much as a pig-trough. Some men would 
 imagine, crawling on all fours, through a wilderness 
 of sludge, only fit for a Norfolk islander ; some think 
 it capital fun, and follow it on the " oozes," as the 
 scavengers' continents are professionally called. A gal- 
 lant colonel, who has written on this amusement, con 
 amore, falls to loggerheads with those who don't or 
 can't like it as much as himself, and calls them dan- 
 dies, and other hard names. He tells you, " the 
 usual way of sallying forth, for this purpose (that is to 
 say, for wild f fowl shooting), is to drive to an inn, on 
 the coast, call the waiter, who recommends an honest 
 boatman, for whom the boots is immediately dispatched. 
 On his arrival, he sees how eager you are to set sail, 
 fixes his price accordingly, shews you thousands of 
 birds where he knows a boat can never get at them ; 
 obliges you with a few of his own killing, at double 
 their value ; and your day ends with a ten pound 
 bill, and, perhaps, bagging a couple of sea-gulls." 
 
 This do n't look promising, and yet the best way 
 for the young aspirant after this high flavoured gun- 
 ning, is really to put himself into the hands of some 
 professor of the science. This individual will, at all 
 events, equip him for the same, with the thousand 
 appliances necessary for the craft, and this is nine- 
 tenths of the battle. It is not any part of our design 
 in these pages to teach " the young idea how to shoot" 
 wild-fowl in the preserves of old Neptune ; we dare 
 not do so in a work professing to deal with recrea 
 
286 WILD GOOSE SHOOTING. 
 
 tions in sporting : sea-gunning is not amusement 
 according to the general average idea of pastime. 
 Captain Lacey, who wrote the last book upon the 
 subject, heads one of his leading chapters, " Risking 
 it," and puts to it the motto, " Man is, and ever will 
 be, mad." Canoe-cannonading and mud-battueing, 
 certainly, are not suited for a particularly tame spirit ; 
 therefore, we again repeat, he who would follow them 
 cannot do better than put himself into the hands of 
 a professional gunner, and into a patent life pre- 
 serving belt. But there is a species of wild fowl 
 shooting appropriate to persons in their senses, and 
 in this the young amateur may indulge ; as we pro 
 ceed to lay before him. 
 
 Many of the inland waters of England are the 
 resort of wild fowl, and these afford quite as much 
 of this sport as any ordinary appetite can desire. We 
 will suppose our shooter has fixed upon the spot for 
 his diversion; he will then select a suitable gun, 
 which is an indispensable provision. Let it be 
 double-barrelled, and a good sized one, fit to carry 
 No. 4 shot, with a good distribution. Next, his care 
 should be to have a perfect retreiver. Let this be 
 an animal which will, on occasion, beat the rushes, 
 osier-beds, &c. He must be as mute as a mole, 
 docile, wary, and under perfect command. If not all 
 these, just as you are within shot of a flock of 
 glorious teal, he begins whimpering, and your birds 
 take French leave. Mr. Colquhoun says, a dog of a 
 very cool temper will retrieve wild fowl better in 
 
WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 287 
 
 loch shooting a noble highland sport, as good, in 
 fact, as any of their wild diversions than another 
 with quicker movements, and perhaps a finer nose. 
 Many of the cripples in this shooting take refuge in 
 reeds and hushes, and the keen tempered dog is apt 
 to overrun them, [thus losing time; whereas, the 
 other slowly tracks them, one by one, to their hiding 
 place. His third essential is a small pocket tele- 
 scope. Thus equipped, he enters upon his wild 
 fowling, which combines, of course, the pursuit of all 
 aquatic birds coming under the title of wild 
 fowl. As the method of sporting is the same with 
 all, so far as the principle is concerned, our obser- 
 vations will be understood not only as applicable to 
 wild geese, but to 
 
 WILD DUCK, WIDGEON, AND TEAL SHOOTING. 
 
 Having reached the shore of the water which he 
 purposes shooting, the young wild fowler will look 
 out for his game, taking heed he himself is not 
 observed. For this intent he should creep cautiously 
 to the first spot commanding a view of the usual 
 resorts of wild fowl. Let this be done with the 
 minutest care, as the quarry he is looking for so 
 nearly resembles the stones and tufts, and general 
 covers they frequent, that he will find it very difficult 
 to distinguish one from the other. Should he make 
 out any water fowls afloat in shore, let him then, 
 with his glass, scrutinise the margin of the lake or 
 
288 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
 
 stream, and mark well if anything be astir there. 
 Should he find that there is, he may count on it 
 being either ducks, widgeon, or teal. If his sport 
 lie on streams or rivers, says Mr. Colquhoun, he 
 will find it very unsatisfactory; as there are so many 
 turnings and windings, which prevent his seeing the 
 fowl until they are close at hand, and so many little 
 bogs and creeks, where they conceal themselves 
 beyond the possibility of detection, until the whi of 
 their wings, and the croak of the mallard, betray their 
 hiding place. 
 
 This is no doubt true; but the chase of water 
 fowl, in favourable circumstances, by running streams, 
 particularly when there are preserves in the vicinity, 
 is very pretty sport. Still it will be snap shooting 
 to a certain extent, and chance shots only are to be 
 reckoned on, while wild fowl stalking on open waters 
 is more a matter of science ; and of this we are treat- 
 ing. Having once got sight of the birds, the gunner 
 knows that his game is within reach, and he goes 
 about getting within shot of it. Let him search out 
 some cover, through which he may shoot at them. 
 In creeping to this shelter, if practicable, keep to lee- 
 ward of them, for then there is less chance of their 
 hearing or winding you. Having placed yourself within 
 shot, fire at them sitting with one barrel, reserving 
 the other to salute them when they rise, which they 
 will do perpendicularly. 
 
 Ducks are far more wary and difficult of approach 
 than widgeon or teal ; so that in stalking the former 
 
WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 289 
 
 110 precaution of silence or concealment should be lost 
 sight of. The great art, too, is to get sitting shots, 
 by which only a good account can be rendered of a 
 flock of wild fowl. When so found, they are, for the 
 most part, sleeping; as, for the purpose of feeding, they 
 resort to marshes, fens, and swamps, on commons 
 and moors. Their time for repose is the day ; their 
 period of flight the earliest dawn, and from twilight 
 to dark at night. 
 
 These observations only apply to wild fowl shoot- 
 ing with a shoulder gun, in distinction to the mo- 
 dern invention of cannonading them on salt water 
 with stanchion guns, introduced by Colonel Hawker 
 at least into the list of a gentleman's recreations. 
 With this sport, as we have said, it is not our design 
 to deal. It certainly does not come legitimately 
 within the range of this work, which professes to treat 
 of the rural enjoyments in which the gun is an agent; 
 and not of the toil or business of slaughtering the 
 birds of chase by wholesale, for retail, by the hands of 
 the metropolitan poulterer. 
 
 The taste for battue shooting, by sea or land, we 
 would, under any circumstances, be loth to cater for. 
 From it has sprung all the sin and sorrow to which 
 our game laws have given existence ; a system, when 
 it is used as a stimulant of a morbid appetite, that 
 promotes the very evil it was intended to remedy. 
 The spirit of our field sports is to afford a wholesome 
 pursuit, which shall link healthful exercise with 
 manly habits ; this new-fangled contrivance, the 
 
290 
 
 NATURAL HISTOEY OF THE WILD GOOSE. 
 
 battue, has overrun the land with a plague of phea- 
 sants and hares, and transformed the gentleman pre- 
 server into an amateur poultry butcher. When our 
 bad game code shall be reformed, as it ought and 
 must, a bad foreign fancy will be got rid of, and once 
 again our woods and fields shall be sought by those 
 who desire to take their RECREATIONS IN SHOOTING. 
 
 THE GRET LA.G GOOSE. 
 
 The Wild Goose, or Grey Lag, of British authors 
 (Anas anser). This is but one of six wild species 
 of geese that visit our islands in great quantities. 
 Colonel Hawker thus specifies them : The Bean 
 Goose ; a variety of the common one : The Bernacle ; 
 most common in Ireland and Scotland (and a smaller 
 
THE WILD GOOSE. 
 
 291 
 
 bird) : The Brent Goose ; still less than the former : 
 The Grey Lag : The Egyptian Goose ; Ganser, or 
 Gambo Goose : and the White-fronted, or Laughing 
 Goose : -besides the Red-breasted Siberian Goose, 
 a rare and very delicate species. There are also 
 other varieties of this species, such as the Canadian, 
 &c. ; few, if any, of which, however, are visitors to 
 
 THE CANADIAN' GOOSE. 
 
 our island. The wild geese fly in flocks, at very 
 regular intervals of distance ; either going in a line 
 abreast, or in two lines, joining in an angle in the 
 middle ; in short, with mathematical precision they 
 appear to select that figure which shall best stem the 
 resistance of the air, and lessen their fatigues. By 
 their manner of flying, also, they present as small a 
 
292 THE WILD GOOSE. 
 
 mark as possible to the fowler or sportsman; and 
 from the great height to which they rise, and the 
 distances they maintain from each other, it is diffi- 
 cult, nay, almost impossible, to hit more than one at 
 a time. The goose is remarkable for its fecundity, 
 even in a wild state. The female hatches her eggs 
 with great solicitude, and the male bird often drives 
 her off, to take her place with a more noisy dignity. 
 The wild goose seldom lays above eight eggs. It is 
 known to live to a great age. Of the small brent 
 goose Colonel Hawker remarks, that our late king, 
 William the Fourth, esteemed it beyond other wild 
 fowl. Of the Egyptian goose he thus relates : 
 " Two of these birds appeared, some years ago, in 
 Norfolk; one of which was killed by John Ponton, 
 Esq., and the other by his keeper. Three Egyptian 
 geese were, for some days, in the winter of 1823, 
 in the fields of Longparish ; and after being fired at 
 about ten times, the old gander was killed by one of 
 the labourers. I was informed that they were at 
 first so easy of access, that I then concluded they 
 must have taken flight from some gentleman's pond. 
 The next year again, during the tremendous gales 
 from the west, a flock of about eighty appeared near 
 the same place : and two more were killed and sent 
 me by the same man. I have, therefore, no doubt 
 of their importation, instead of emigration, to this 
 country. I suppose these birds were, till of late 
 years, very scarce, as Mr. Bewick has no specimen 
 of them." The laughing geese (Anas albifrons) have 
 
THE WILD GOOSE 29o 
 
 only been known to the sportsman of our islands for 
 some years Hawker asserts since the frost of 1830, 
 when a flock of eighty of them alighted on a field 
 near the village of Milford. 
 
 The cry of the goose is frequently heard when we 
 cannot catch the least sight of the flock overhead ; 
 it seems to pass from one to another, like the bleat of 
 the sheep, or the bay of the hound in pursuit. It is 
 seldom heard when they alight. The bird is too well 
 known for any specification of its plumage or internal 
 conformation. 
 
 Notwithstanding the royal authority in favour of 
 the brent variety of this unsavoury fowl, our palate 
 gives preference over all the race to the Wexford 
 species, called by the natives the " barnacle." This 
 bird frequents the coast of Ireland, from Bray Head 
 to Sligo Bay, in vast quantities. The country people 
 cook it by all conceivable and inconceivable con- 
 trivances, and it is eaten at breakfast at the houses 
 of the gentry done into a pate. After too much wine 
 overnight (which, from Bray Head to Sligo Bay, and 
 thence to Wexford again, is a consequence of course) 
 it is really a most delicious relish. This may seem a 
 quaint style of doing a natural history notice, but 
 allowance must be made for the subject. " Who 
 drives fat oxen," &c., the benevolent reader will apply 
 apropos of goose-ology. It is fit to say, however, that 
 in the affair of gastronomy, the wild goose is no 
 doubt a non-descript, belonging neither to the genus 
 " flesh, fish, or good red herring." The most amusing 
 
294 THE WILD GOOSE. 
 
 natural historian in the world thus speaks of his obli- 
 gations to this bird : " A young goose is generally 
 reckoned very good eating, yet the feathers of this 
 bird still increase its value. I feel my obligations 
 to this animal every word I write, for however defi- 
 cient a man's head may be, his pen is nimble enough 
 upon every occasion ; it is happy, indeed, for poor 
 authors, that it requires no great effort to put it in 
 motion. But the feathers of this bird are still as 
 valuable in another capacity, as they make the softest 
 and the warmest beds to sleep on." 
 
 Of goose feathers most of our beds in Europe are 
 composed (or supposed to be by convention) ; in the 
 countries bordering on the Levant, and in all Asia, the 
 use of them is unknown. How it happens that the 
 ancients had not the use of feather-beds, is surprising. 
 Pliny tells us, indeed, that they made bolsters of fea- 
 thers to lay their heads on ; and this serves as a proof 
 that they turned feathers to no other uses. As good 
 feathers are a very valuable commodity, great numbers 
 of geese are kept tame in the fens of Lincolnshire, 
 which are plucked once or twice a year. The feathers 
 of Somersetshire are most in esteem; those of Ire- 
 land are reckoned the worst. Hudson's Bay also 
 furnishes very fine feathers, supposed to be of the 
 same kind. The down of the swan is brought from 
 Dantzic. The wild goose always retains the same 
 marks. These marks are seldom found in the tame ; 
 but both invariably retain a white ring round their 
 tail, which shows they are both descended from the 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WILD DUCK. 
 
 295 
 
 same original. Pliny describes the flight of the wild 
 goose, its wonderful and harmony of accord ; and re- 
 marks, that, " unlike the cranes and the storks, which 
 journey in the obscurity of the night, the geese are 
 seen pursuing their route in broad day." 
 
 The Wild Duck (Anas boschas, Linn.). Among 
 wild ducks the male is called the mallard, and the 
 young birds, flappers. In size it is not equal to the 
 tame duck. In plumage it differs but little from it. 
 Its bill is yellow; its neck is adorned with the 
 brightest grass green feathers, ending in a white 
 ring. The most apparent distinction between the wild 
 and tame species is, however, in the colour of the legs : 
 
296 
 
 THE WILD DUCK. 
 
 the wild duck's legs are black ; those of the tame one, 
 yellow. Those ducks which feed much in the sea- 
 water, and dive, have a broad bill bending upwards, 
 a large hind toe, and a long bluish tail ; those which 
 feed in plashes have bills narrower and straighter, 
 and a tail sharply pointed. A few of the wild duck 
 tribe, known to the sportsman as natives of our own 
 
 European dominions, may be thus enumerated : 
 First, the Mallard : the Dun-bird, or Packard, with 
 the head and neck of a bright bay : the Widgeon, 
 with a bill of lead colour, and the back feathers 
 marked with narrow black and white wavy lines, and 
 well known by its whistling sound : the Black Duck, 
 or Scoter, or Black Diver (Anas nigra) : the Bur- 
 rough Duck, or Sheldrake : the Eider Duck (Anas 
 
THE WILD DUCK. 297 
 
 mollissima). Colonel Hawker says of this duck, 
 " The only three I ever heard of on the Hampshire 
 coast, appeared in a late severe winter; I stopped 
 them all, though I got but one, as the other two beat 
 me in a sea." The Ferruginous Duck (Anas rutila) : 
 the Golden Eye (Anas clanguld) : the Grey Duck, or 
 Gad wall (Anas strepera) : the Longtailed Duck, or 
 
 1HE SHELDRAKE, BDRROTJOH DUCK, 
 
 Swallow-tailed Sheldrake (Anas glacialis) : the Pin- 
 tailed Duck, Winter Duck, Sea Pheasant, or Cracker 
 (Anas acuta): the Scaup Duck (Anas marila): the 
 Shoveller, Kertlutock, or Broad-billed Duck (Anas 
 clypeata): the Tufted Duck (Anas fuligula): the 
 Velvet Duck, or Double Scoter (Anas fusca) : besides 
 other varieties. 
 
 As these live much in the same manner as the 
 
298 THE WILD DUCK. 
 
 domestic ducks, we shall only briefly touch upon 
 them. They resort together in flocks during the 
 winter, and fly in pairs during the summer. The 
 velvet ducks are seen more in summer than in 
 winter. Ducks' nests are constructed easily, among 
 heath and rushes of their favourite localities, not far 
 from the water ; where they will lay twelve or four- 
 teen eggs before they sit : the hen remains on them 
 about thirty days, when the birds burst forth to take 
 their first tumble in the water. An old duck is often 
 a cunning bird, and will make her nest a considerable 
 distance from the water for safety ; she has been 
 known to do so upon an oak tree, five and twenty 
 feet from the ground : a perilous proceeding for the 
 young birds, whose wing feathers are of the slowest 
 growth. Here they were dependent on the tender- 
 ness of their parent, to convey them, in her beak or 
 feet, to the water, their necessary element. Wild 
 ducks breed with us, but not in great quantities. 
 The gamekeepers of Mr. Eyre, of Passop, Derby- 
 shire, in 1801, observed a wild duck fly out of a large 
 oak, in which, the year preceding, there was a hawk's 
 nest ; the nest was found to be in complete repair, and 
 contained two eggs recently laid by the duck in it. 
 
 The nest, whether high or low, is composed of 
 singular materials. The longest grass, mixed with 
 heath, and lined within with the bird's own feathers, 
 will sometimes be the composition ; although, in pro- 
 portion to the climate, the nest is more or less arti- 
 ficially made. The duck in the Arctic regions will 
 
THE WILD DUCK. 299 
 
 form itself a cavity to lay in, the approach of which 
 it carefully shelters ; lines it first with a layer of clay 
 and grass, then with moss, then with feathers or 
 down. The eider duck, which is about twice as large 
 as the common duck, makes her nest among the 
 rocks or plants of the sea-shore ; where, after lining 
 the nest like others of the species, she will add to it 
 a luxurious covering, plucked from the soft inner 
 down of her own breast. This valuable tapestry- 
 work the natives hunt for, and carry away with nest 
 and eggs; when the indefatigable bird will imme- 
 diately set about another, of which she is again 
 robbed : the third time she still builds, but her eider 
 down is exhausted, and the drake supplies the loss with 
 his own. If this also is carried away, both birds for- 
 sake the place, and breed there no more. We find 
 the flesh of those that migrate to us, not nearly so 
 high flavoured as those that breed here. The wild 
 duck at your table that eats loose, rancid, and fishy, 
 you may assuredly take for a foreign traveller, whose 
 food, by the way of waters, was fish. They love to 
 choose a lake in the neighbourhood of woods, with a 
 marsh at one side ; and if a couple of them once 
 alight, hundreds, allured by the constant call peculiar 
 to this tribe, will flock to the same spot. The 
 windpipe of the duck, where it begins to enter 
 the lungs, opens into a kind of bony cavity, where 
 the sound is reflected, as in a great musical in- 
 strument. Wild ducks generally choose that part 
 of the lake where they are inaccessible to the 
 
300 THE WILD DUCK. 
 
 approach of the fowler. Here, in multitudes, and 
 long before the season for courtship, they will be 
 hurrying and scrambling about the whole day, never 
 at rest ; but, as if holding a general council of ways 
 and means, there they are, in the middle of the lake, 
 now up, now down, always busy, and always loud ; 
 going off at night time to feed in the woods or ditches, 
 or to adjacent meadows : they are too wary to approach 
 in the day time. 
 
 In Norfolk, the shoveller duck is called, provin- 
 cially, beck, or scopper-bill. They breed in this 
 county. Colonel Hawker says, " that the flappers of 
 this species are easier found, and show more sport, 
 than those of the common wild duck. Their flesh, 
 too, is of superior flavour. There is a variety of this 
 kind, called the Red-breasted Shoveller ; for which, as 
 well as all other varieties of wild fowl, I have found 
 the coast of Norfolk to be the best. This, no doubt, 
 is in consequence of its being nearest to Holland ; 
 from whence there are driven across the channel, 
 by a strong easterly wind, many birds that will 
 seldom travel farther to the westward." The birds 
 brought principally to the London poulterers' shops, 
 are the packards or dunbirds, taken in immense 
 numbers by decoy, of which we subjoin the account 
 given by Mr. Daniel : " The packard, or dunbird, 
 is about the size of a widgeon, weighs one pound 
 twelve ounces ; its length is nineteen inches, breadth, 
 two feet and a half; the bill is broader than the 
 widgeon's, of a deep lead colour, with a black tip ; 
 
THE WILD DUCK. 301 
 
 irides, orange ; the head and neck deep chesnut, with 
 a small triangular spot of white under the centre of 
 the lower mandible ; the lower part of the neck and 
 hreast, and upper part of the hack, dusky hlack ; 
 scapulars and wing-coverts, nearest the body, of a 
 greyish white, elegantly marked with narrow lines of 
 black; the exterior wing-coverts and belly, ash 
 coloured and brown ; vent feathers and coverts of tail, 
 black ; the tail consists of short feathers, twelve in 
 number, of a deep grey; the legs, lead coloured; 
 secondary quill feathers, regularly edged with a stripe 
 of white. The female has the head of a pale reddish 
 brown ; the breast is rather of a deeper colour ; wing- 
 coverts and belly cinereous ; the back marked like that 
 of the male. They are excellent eating. A decoy for 
 dunbirds is called a flight-pond, and has nets fastened 
 to tall stout poles, twenty-eight or thirty feet long ; 
 at the bottom of each pole is a box fixed, filled with 
 heavy stones, sufficient to elevate the poles and nets 
 the instant an iron pin is withdrawn, which retains 
 the nets and poles flat upon the reeds, small willow 
 boughs, or furze. Withinside the nets are small 
 pens, made of reeds, about three feet high, for the 
 reception of birds that strike against the nets, and 
 fall down ; and such is the form and shortness of 
 wing in the packards, that they cannot ascend again 
 from these little enclosures if they would; besides, 
 the numbers, which are usually knocked into these 
 pens, preclude all chance of escape from them by the 
 wing. A decoyman will sometimes allow the haunt 
 
302 THE WILD DUCK. 
 
 of dunbirds to be so great, that the whole surface of 
 the pond shall be covered with them, previous to his 
 attempting to take one. Upon such occasions, he 
 bespeaks all the assistants he can get to complete the 
 slaughter by breaking their necks. When all is 
 ready, the dunbirds are roused from the pond, and as 
 all wild fowl rise against the wind, the poles in that 
 quarter are unpinned, and fly up with the nets at the 
 instant the dunbirds begin to leave the surface of 
 the water, so as to meet them in their first ascent, 
 and they are thus beat down by hundreds." 
 
 The other method, of French origin, is the decoy- 
 duck system ; where the fowler provides himself 
 with a number of mallards, made tame. If the 
 wild fowl are in a state of sleepiness, they will not 
 follow the call of the decoys towards the nets (like 
 that in which fish are caught in weirs). In such case, 
 a little dog is brought into requisition. He passes back- 
 ward and forward between the reed hedges, in which 
 there are little holes, both for the decoy man to see, 
 and for the little dog to pass through. This attracts 
 the eye of the wild fowl, who, prompted by curiosity, 
 advance towards this little animal, while he, all the 
 time, keeps playing among the reeds, nearer and 
 nearer the funnels (covered over by the sticks and 
 nets), till they follow him too far to recede. Some- 
 times the dog will not attract their attention, till a 
 red handkerchief, or something as attractive, be put 
 about him. The decoy ducks are taught to dive 
 under the water as soon as the rest are driven in. 
 
THE WILD DUCK. 303 
 
 Thousands on thousands are brought to market by 
 these modes. 
 
 While speaking of ancient and modern modes of 
 decoy, we cannot avoid taking notice of that which is 
 said to be the Chinese method of ensnaring these 
 birds : it equals the French decoys for ingenuity. 
 The Italian method, of putting out their eyes, is too 
 cruel for our English habits ; but this Chinese 
 method might be followed without detriment to hu- 
 manity. Whenever the fowler sees a number of 
 ducks settled in any particular plash of water, he 
 sends off two or three gourds to float among them. 
 These gourds, being made hollow, swim on the 
 surface of the water ; and on one pool there may 
 be sometimes seen twenty or thirty of them. The 
 fowl are at first a little shy of coming near, but 
 by degrees they approach, and, as birds grow fa- 
 miliar with scarecrows, so the ducks gather around 
 the gourds, and amuse themselves by whetting their 
 bills against them. At last the fowler is satisfied 
 he can deceive them. He puts his head into one 
 of these hollow gourds, and, making holes to breathe 
 and see through, he wades slowly into the water, 
 keeping his body under, and nothing but his head, 
 gourd-accoutred, above its surface. He thus gets in 
 among the wild-fowl, while they, long used to see 
 gourds, take not the least fright while the enemy is 
 in the midst of them ; and an insidious enemy he is, 
 for ever as he approaches a fowl, he seizes it by the 
 legs, and jerks it under the water; there he fastens 
 
304 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TEAL. 
 
 it under his girdle, and goes to the next, till he has 
 loaded himself. When he has got his quantity, 
 without ever attempting to disturb the rest of the 
 fowls on the pool, he slowly moves off again ; and in 
 this manner pays the flock a visit several times in 
 the day. This, if true, is hy no means a wholesale 
 method of duck murder, and so far to be approved of. 
 The young reader will find, in Col. Hawker's in- 
 dustrious experiences, some useful hints on wild duck 
 shooting. For our parts, we have not been without 
 our attachment to the diversion. Give us, in any 
 part of the world, in the eastern counties of our 
 own country, in France, or amid the hills of Scot- 
 land, where the tarns lie like oases among the 
 hills some far-off solitary pool, or marshy lake 
 clear water only in the centre, reeds and rushes 
 thickly bristling round there might we not hope to 
 see flappers plentiful as frogs : duck, teal, widgeon 
 who knows ? wild geese and swans from our crouch- 
 ing station : and there might we not again, amidst 
 the ducking, and diving, and gobbling, and bustle, 
 of a first arrival, do execution as of yore. 
 
 The Teal (Anas crecca, Linn.). This, the smallest 
 of the cluck species, is also the most delicate and the 
 most esteemed. It is, unfortunately, more rare than 
 the others, but the numbers that come to this country 
 vary greatly from season to season. The teal weighs 
 about twelve ounces or more, and may measure about 
 fifteen inches in length. The male bird has the hand- 
 somest plumage, according to the received standard of 
 
THE TEAL. 
 
 305 
 
 beauty among the feathered tribe. The bill is black; 
 the head and upper parts of the neck are of a bright 
 bay ; the whole markings of its head and wings are 
 veiy splendid. The female has the same beautiful 
 green patch on her wings as the male bird. A few 
 of these birds breed with us. Some years back great 
 numbers were taken in decoys, but the amount is 
 
 THE TEAL. 
 
 much reduced of late. The internal structure of this 
 bird is peculiar : it has convolutions at the end of the 
 windpipe, adapted, as it is said, to the peculiar sounds 
 it emits. This is also the case of many others of the 
 wild fowl tribe, as we have mentioned in our account 
 of the wild swan and goose. The teal's nest is 
 formed of rushes, and lined with down, and so placed 
 as to swing to, and rise and fall with, the motions of 
 
306 THE TEAL. 
 
 the wind and water. Some authors speak of varieties 
 of this bird as summer teal, &c. Buffon is- clearly 
 wrong in his description of a bird, of a much greater 
 size, in classing it as a teal. Its eggs are of the size 
 of those of the pigeon ; they are white, with brown spots. 
 The teal decoy used to be made after this recipe : 
 Where a pond, environed by a wood, is found, the 
 decoy is to be raised. This should be planted round 
 with willows, if possible (in the event of the wood not 
 clothing it sufficiently). Three or four pipes, or 
 channels are then to be dug, broad towards the pond, 
 and verging, point-like, towards the end. These are 
 to be covered with nets, supported by hooped sticks, 
 bending from one side to another, and so forming a 
 sort of archway, or vault, gradually growing narrower 
 to the point at which it is terminated by a tunnel 
 net; reed hedges, should slant to the edges of the 
 pipes or channels, which are thus hidden from the 
 sight, and behind which the fowler places himself, to 
 pursue his operation. When the wild fowl come 
 down at night to feed, the decoy whistle is raised ; the 
 decoy is covered with teal, brought thither by the 
 fowler's art, who has scattered the nets over with 
 hemp seed, &c. The decoy ducks begin to pick up 
 the grain, and the wild fowl quickly imitate their 
 example, and thus are secured in the net, the fowler 
 burning a piece of turf at his nose, that their exqui- 
 site sense of smelling may not put them on guard. 
 In frosty weather these birds come together in flocks 
 of from twenty to thirty, but are generally found 
 
THE TEAL. 
 
 307 
 
 scattered. Even birds of one family seldom keep 
 long together. The flight of the teal, when flushed, 
 it rarely high : it skims along the pool, and gives the 
 gunner a fair chance. It is no difficult matter to get 
 near, but you are apt to lose sight of him without a 
 close and sharp look out, as he often flies away alto- 
 gether. Colonel Hawker says, " Of all the prizes 
 that a wild fowl shooter could wish to meet with, a 
 flock of teal is the very first ; " and for that reason, 
 probably, it is becoming one of the rarest in the lottery 
 of WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
 
 

 YB 
 

 
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