62 Life of Audubon. 



sportsmen adjourn to some house, and spend an hour or 

 two in friendly intercourse, appointing, before they part, 

 a day for another trial." 



While at the town of Frankfort, Audubon had an 

 opportunity of seeing the celebrated Daniel Boone 

 "barking squirrels," or, in less technical phrase, driv- 

 ing them out of their hiding-places by firing into the 

 bark of the tree immediately beside the position they 

 crouch into. Audubon went out with Boone to see the 

 sport, and writes : — 



" We walked out together, and followed the rocky 

 margins of the Kentucky river until we reached a piece 

 of flat land thickly covered with black walnuts, oaks, and 

 hickories. As the mast was a good one that year, squir- 

 rels were seen gamboling on every tree around us. My 

 companion, a stout, hale, and athletic man, dressed in a 

 homespun hunting shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, 

 carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading 

 it, he said had proved efficient in all his former under- 

 takings, and which he hoped would not fail on this occa- 

 sion, as he felt proud to show me his skill. The gun was 

 wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six- 

 hundred thread linen, and the charge sent home with a 

 hickory rod. We moved not a step from the place, for 

 the squirrels were so numerous that it was unnecessary 

 to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these animals 

 which had observed us, and was crouched on a branch 

 about fifty paces distant, and bade me mark well the spot 

 where the ball should hit. He raised his piece gradually, 

 until the bead (that being the name given by the Ken- 

 tuckians to the sight) of the barrel was brought to a line 

 with the spot w^hich he intended to hit, and fired. 



" I was astounded to find that the ball had hit the 

 piece of the bark immediately beneath the squirrel, and 

 shivered it to splinters ; the concussion produced by 



