Small Game Shooting 299 



lantern is held behind it. The travelling sports- 

 man will do well to listen with keen attention to 

 this ancient joke, and to accept with pleasure an 

 invitation to hag snipe, insisting of course that his 

 kind friends should accompany him to the nearest 

 marsh. When he has set his sack and lit his candle, 

 he can slip back to camp, and the expression upon 

 the faces of the others when they return will be 

 worth seeing. 



Grouse and pheasants are found for the most part 

 in the northern woods, and it is seldom that more 

 than a few birds can be shot in a day, There are 

 many varieties of grouse, and many local names for 

 the same variety. Prairie-hens, sage-hens, and 

 ptarmigan are grouse, but the birds most common 

 in the woods of the Northwest are Canace ob- 

 scurus and Canace Canadensis. Canace obscurus is 

 aptly called the Fool Hen, for the bird will sit on 

 a pine bough and allow you to shoot at it again 

 and again. For such sport a rook rifle is the only 

 weapon (or a pistol). We appreciated these birds 

 most in a pie. The other grouse are not so easily 

 bagged, but the shooting of them at any time is 

 poor sport compared with that afforded by quail 

 and duck and snipe. Of pheasant-shooting on the 

 Pacific Slope I am not qualified to write, having had 

 little of it. Attempts have been made to breed and 

 preserve the English variety (Phasianus colchicus), 

 but — so far as I am aware — with little success. 

 The bird found in Oregon comes, I believe, from 

 Japan (versicolor), and does well in certain places. 

 It would be extremely interesting if the State of 



