SIO Rural Sforts. [Part II. 



for, it will not require much time to give an account of 

 the rural sports of America. The general taste of the 

 country is to kill the things in order to have them to eaty 

 which latter forms no part of the sportsman's objects. 



377. There cannot be said to be any thing here, 

 which, we, in England, call hunting. The deer are 

 hunted by dogs, indeed, but the hunters do not follow. 

 They are posted at their several stations to shoot the 

 deer as he passes. This is only one remove from the 

 Indian hunting. I never saw, that 1 know of, any man 

 that had seen a pack of hounds in America, except 

 those kept by old John Brown, in Bucks County, 

 Pennsylvania, who was the only hunting Quaker that 

 I ever heard of, and who was grandfather of the famous 

 General Brown. In short, there is none of what we 

 call hunting ; or, so little, that no man can expect to 

 aneet with it. 



378. No coursing. I never saw a greyhound her?. 

 Indeed, there are no hares, that have the same manners 

 that ours have, or any thing like their fleetness. Th^ 

 woods, too, or some sort of cover, except in the singu- 

 lar instance of the plains in this island, are too near 

 at hand. 



379. But, of shooting the variety is endless. Phea- 

 sants, partridges, wood-cocks, snipes, grouse, wild- 

 ducks of many sorts, teal, plover, rabbits. 



380. There is a disagreement laetween the North and 

 the South as to the naming of the two former. North 

 of New Jersey, the pheasants are called partridges, 

 and the partridges are called quails. To the South of 

 New Jersey, they are called by what I think are their 

 proper names, taking the English names of those birds 

 to be proper. For, pheasants do not remain in coveys; 

 but, mix, like common fowls. The intercourse between 

 the males and females is promiscuous, and not by pairs, 

 as in the case of partridges. And these are the man- 

 ners of the American pheasants, which are found by 

 enes, twos, and so on, and never in families^ except 

 when young, when, like chickens, they keep with the 

 old hen. The American partridges are not quails; 

 because quails are gregarious. They keep in flocks, 

 Uke r<toks called crows in America), or like larh^ or 



