190 AMERICAN" GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 



were spread out below us extended in another direction 

 like an endless emerald ocean. 



I gazed upon this landscape with a mingled feeling of 

 oppressive awe and serene rapture, and I do not know 

 how long I would have continued it, had not one of my 

 companions given a whistle, to attract my attention. On 

 looking around, I saw him pointing to some white-tailed 

 ptarmigans that were walking along tlie edge of the 

 alpine shrubbery beneath us. This pleasant sight made 

 me forget the scenery in a moment, so I descended to 

 where the birds were feeding and attempted to flush a 

 small pack which were trying to hide in a low thicket, 

 but my efforts proved futile, for the more I tried to rout 

 them the harder they ran and skulked. Seeing that they 

 would not rise, my red-headed friend shouted to the 

 '' hound dog: " " Hi at 'em! " and that animal dashed at 

 them, loudly barking. He flushed the greater number, 

 but they had scarcely begun to ply their pinions before 

 five of them fell before the barrels of our guns. 



The Venus-haired man, who was known as Jabe, sug- 

 gested the routing of the others. I agreed, so we com- 

 menced beating the shrubbery in a methodical manner 

 and "shooing," but tlie mort we " shood" the more the 

 birds skulked and tried to conceal themselves, some of 

 them running around the clumps of miniature shrubbery 

 much as a wood-pecker would go round a tree. Being 

 unable to follow them through the thicket, I fired at the 

 head of one which 1 saw dodging about the center of a 

 bush and bagged it, as I wished to secure it as a speci- 

 men. My feelings reprimanded me severely for this bit 

 of vandalism, but I learned that my companicm had no 

 compunctions of conscience about shooting birds on the 

 ground, his excuse being that if they would not rise 

 when he wisned, he was content to kill them in the posi- 

 tion they liked best. He hugged two of the skulkers, 

 and his comrade three. Tliesc birds, except my speci- 



