BASHFUL DRUMMERS. 215 



flying ! All in all, the partridge made a 

 great impression upon my boyish mind. 



By and by some older companion initi- 

 ated me into the mystery of setting snares. 

 My attempts were primitive enough, no 

 doubt; but they answered their purpose, 

 taking me into the woods morning and 

 night, in all kinds of weather, and afford- 

 ing me no end of pleasurable excitement. 

 Once in a great while the noose would be 

 displaced (the " slip-noose," we called it, 

 with unsuspected pleonasm), and the bar- 

 berries gone. At last, after numberless 

 disappointments, I actually found a bird in 

 the snare. The poor captive was still alive, 

 and, as I came up, was making frantic ef- 

 forts to escape ; but I managed to secure 

 him, in spite of my trembling fingers, and 

 then, though the deed looked horribly like 

 murder, I killed him (I would rather not 

 mention how), and carried him home in 

 triumph. 



Many years passed, and I became in my 

 own way an ornithologist. One by one I 

 scraped acquaintance with all the common 

 birds of our woods and fields; but the 

 drumming of the partridge (or of the ruffled 



