OF A RANCHMAN 



plums. As the dawn brightened the sharp- 

 is kept up incessantly their hoarse cluck- 

 ing, and small parties began to fly down 

 from their roosts to the berry bushes. 

 While perched up among the bare limbs of 

 the trees, sharply outlined against the sky, 

 they were very conspicuous. General!/ 

 they crouched close down, with the head 

 drawn in to the body and the feathers ruf- 

 fled, but when alarmed or restless they 

 stood up straight with their necks stretched 

 out, looking very awkward. Later in the 

 day they would have been wild and hard to 

 approach, but I kept out of their sight, and 

 sometimes got two or three shots at the 

 same bird before it flew off. They offered 

 beautiful marks, and I could generally get a 

 rest for my rifle, while in the gray morning, 

 before sunrise, I was not very conspicuous 

 myself, and could get up close beneath 

 where they were; so I did not have mi. 

 trouble in killing five, almost all of them 

 shot very nearly where the neck joins the 

 body, one having the head fairly cut off. 



