98 WING-SHOOTING. 



A reason why a light choke-bore is preferable to a heavy 

 one, is that the birds are wild, flush at long distances, and 

 a light close-shooting gun is more efiective, because it can 

 be held " on the ready " more easily, and tossed in posi- 

 tion more readily. In fact what is required for this game 

 in winter is quick, hard, and straight shooting. 



SYNOPSIS. 



Then, when the weather is fine and clear, begin your 

 work at an early hour in grain-fields, and work them over 

 until ten or eleven o'clock ; from that time till three 

 or four o'clock, work out corn-fields, turnip-fields, thickets, 

 fence-sides, streaked with cover, fallow-fields, and grass 

 lands containing creeks, and look over bush-pastures dot- 

 ted with patches of standing trees, fallen trees and brush 

 heaps. After three or four o'clock, return to the same 

 grounds, or similar ones to those worked over in the 

 morning. During cold and windy weather, work out the 

 edges of thickets and hill-sides with a southern exposure. 

 If the weather be dry and hot look over the edges of 

 swamps, the sides of streams lined by weeds and bushes ; 

 but if wet, go to the dry woods and high grounds. When 

 beechnuts are in abundance, work out beech ridges, and 

 broken grounds adjoining. In the month of December, 



