AVERY BIRD COLLECTION 39 
and shot. His desire to become a wing-shot exceeds the 
wish to save his ammunition. 
“Sam Gibson (colored sportsman), owns a pointer and 
a breech loader. Sam tells me that he has killed up to 
the first of January eighty partridges. I have no reason 
to doubt Sam’s word, as Asbury McShann says that Sam, 
at a single shot, killed seven birds out .of nine huddled 
under a bush, on Mr. J. McCrary’s ‘Jenkins’ Place.’ Of 
the two birds escaping, one was badly wounded. I have 
seen Sam shoot, myself, and I know that he shoots fairly 
well on the wing. 
“Oliver Ward, colored sportsman, bought an Irish set- 
ter from John Cocke. Owns a breech loader, shoots birds 
on the wing. Killed seven on Thanksgiving Day. Why 
should not Oliver shoot well? He has fired more shots 
at birds since the emancipation of our slaves than the 
average white man. 
“Jno. Paine (colored sportsman) owns an Irish setter 
bitch, purchased from Jno. Cocke for five dollars; also 
other pointing dogs. Oliver Ward informs me that John 
killed eight or ten partridges on Thanksgiving Day. 
“Sol May (colored sportsman) owns a setter bitch or 
dog; at any rate he owns a pointing dog, for I have seen 
it. Sol shoots on the wing. 
“The three last named gentlemen have exhausted their 
resources of eloquence to get a dog from me. 
“Now Maus William, don’t you think you ought to give 
your old servant a dog?’ 
““My price is twenty-five dollars,’ said I, ‘for a puppy 
two months old.’ But may ruin overtake me and may 
my right hand be palsied when it receives a dollar from 
a ‘nigger’ for one of my noble dogs! 
“Sam Lawson shoots partridges on the wing whenever 
he has the opportunity. This sportsman when quite 
small used to hold the horses for the Cobbs boys when 
they went shooting, and marked down birds for them. 
Thus he became enamored of field sports and wing shoot- 
ing especially. Sam hunted many days during the sea- 
son of 90 and 791 with one of Mr. Cobbs’ dogs. Having 
lived on the place, Sam knew the dog, and thus managed 
to entice him off either by firing a gun in the neighbor- 
