70 GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



feature of the field ; for he who has never stood 

 hastening to load one with a bird or two rising 

 at each stroke of the ramrod, and got the first 

 cap on just as the last bird was comfortably out 

 of reach, has missed a peculiar phase of existence. 

 By the time the first gun was ready seven more 

 birds had risen in front of the dogs and settled 

 in the grass two or three hundred yards away. 

 Then Prince relaxed his rigid limbs and, after 

 two or three sniffs at the place from which the 

 birds had risen, went to find the fallen ones. 



Not more than once or twice had the dogs 

 quartered the ground where the birds alighted 

 that had escaped, when Doc wheeled suddenly 

 and crouched low. In the gold bloom of the 

 moneywort the tip of his tail trembled with 

 his efforts to hold it still, while his head and 

 nose were almost lost in a dense mat of fern and 

 grass. Prince, coming down the slope to investi- 

 gate — for he had no confidence in other dogs, and 

 never '' backed " anything but his own nose — 

 stopped about half-way and dropped almost flat 

 upon the ground, with glistening eyes turned 

 toward a bunch of grass. 



A greenhorn was now detailed to each dog. 



