18 FIELD SHOOTING. 



which are difficult birds for young beginners. I 

 received no instructions from anybody, but I pos- 

 sessed a quick, true eye, and steady nerve, and 

 had, as I believe, the natural gifts which enable a 

 man to become in time, with proper opportunity, 

 a first-rate field shot. It was a long time after 

 that before I ever shot at a pigeon from a trap, 

 and I confess that I had for many years a strong 

 prejudice against that sort of shooting. There 

 were no quail, snipe, or ducks about Albany 

 County at that time, and it was not until I re- 

 moved to the West that I became familiar with 

 them and with the pinnated grouse. Seventeen 

 years ago I moved to Illinois, and settled on the 

 Sangamon River, near Petersburg. It was more 

 a broken, swampy country, with much cover, than 

 a prairie land like that to the northwards in the 

 State. Game of all sorts was in vast abundance. 

 There were vast numbers of quail ; the pinnated 

 grouse were rather numerous, though nothing like 

 as much so as upon some of the great prairies ; 

 ducks and geese came in immense flocks every 

 spring and fall, and deer and turkeys abounded. 

 It was, too, and is to this day, one of the best 

 places for snipe that 1 know of. It was a para- 

 dise for a sportsman ; and as for the snipe and 



