41 6 Qitail and Grouse of the Pacific Coast 



of the forest will test your nerves as well as the 

 accuracy of your favorite rifle in a way no other 

 game is likely to do. For you must hit it in the 

 head, or at least in the neck, or you will be ashamed 

 to bring it into camp. Moreover, if hit in the 

 body with a large rifle, it will be torn too much ; 

 and if struck with the twenty-two calibre in the 

 body, it may fly away where you will never find it. 

 Then, too, when hit in the head, you feel a satis- 

 faction, as it comes fluttering down, that you can- 

 not know if you hit it in the body. And you do 

 not feel at all bad if the bird goes whizzing away 

 with a feather or two from its neck fluttering 

 down the breeze. 



The best shooting of this kind is on the old 

 cock grouse when " tooting." Perched on some 

 high limb of a big tree he squats so low that he is 

 very hard to see, especially as he looks more like 

 a big knot than a bird, and sends forth a hollow 

 oooop — ooop — ooop, so far-reaching and so de- 

 ceptive that it is quite apt to mislead one. To 

 locate the tree he is on is no easy trick, while 

 getting your eye upon the game calls for the ut- 

 most keenness you can develop. There is nothing 

 in deer or antelope hunting that calls for any finer 

 use of sight, and by the time you see the bird you 

 will generally find you have done some very skil- 

 ful hunting. But you are not yet through. 

 The sights of the rifle, so bright and clear against 



