THE WOOD PIGEON. - m 71 



that a wounded pigeon was darting away, whose further 

 flight I at once arrested, and in a moment after, and 

 while Chance sat down marking the place where the bird 

 fell, Brutus came rejoicingly back with the pigeon in 

 his mouth a fine plump bird, not so large as our quiet, 

 and more in shape and feather like our turtle dove, though 

 of greater size. The tail much longer than the tail of 

 English pigeons, and the outside feathers being the 

 longest, assimilating to the forked tail. Having thus 

 thoroughly impressed my companion with the shooting 

 of an Englishman, as well as with the docility of his dogs, I 

 returned with an appetite to mine inn, and found that 

 the host had attended to my suggestions, and provided 

 something a little more palatable, but I fear not anything 

 like so wholesome as tea, for me to drink at dinner. 

 Hear it, ye Tarn O'Shanters of the United Kingdom 

 of Great Britain and Ireland, in all cases the rail 

 way-side inns are forbidden to sell spirituous liquors, 

 I suppose because, a free people having no efficient 

 means of restraint either in themselves or through police 

 constables, and there being no second-class carriages for 

 Boh-hoys, whose immorality might come out strong through 

 the genial spirit of whiskey, it would not be safe to let 

 conductors, or some of the conducted, have free access 

 to an enemy that steals away the brains, 



When I went forth in the morning mine host assured 

 me that he would get me some trout for dinner, which, 

 according to his account, were plentiful in the adjacent 

 streams that descended from the Alleghany mountains ; 

 but, like many another pledge on sporting matters in 

 the United States, I found perhaps the wish of my in 

 formant to be the father of his promise, and I had no 

 fish for dinner. 



