24 GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



White hangs about the outskirts of the grove of 

 scrub white-oak that holds its leaves all winter. 

 For this he will often make all speed, leaving 

 the hazel where he has been sunning himself to 

 such birds as like it. Whether the bevy flies 

 over it, into it, or under it, you may find some 

 of the birds ensconced in the thick leaves. Per- 

 haps you know something of shooting, but you 

 are not fully educated until you have tried to 

 connect your line of sight over the gun with a 

 brown flash through almost exactly the same 

 color. Vastly is the difficulty increased by the 

 downward curve of the line when the bird is in 

 the top of a tree and darts through an opening 

 below. At other times it shoots straight up- 

 ward long enough to lead you to think you have 

 caught its direction, and then, having cleared the 

 top of the brush, it scuds away on a horizontal 

 line that is gone glimmering among the dream 

 of things that should be, before you can shift 

 your gun to it. 



Little better may you fare when among the 

 dead leaves and grass along the ground the bird 

 lies hiding scarcely a yard from the nose of the 

 statue into which the dog has suddenly turned. 



