

SECURING A TROUBLESOME SPECIMEN. 41 



the same result. I was, however, amply repaid for my 

 trouble by a most singular and beautiful sight. As the 

 grey morning dawned, there appeared, stretching away 

 below us, a perfectly level and unbroken expanse of mist 

 except where some craggy hill-top, like a rocky islet, pro- 

 truded completely hiding everything beneath it, until it 

 was, seemingly, terminated by the irregular line of peaks 

 and ridges of the snowy range, which, in the dim uncertain 

 light, had the appearance of a rugged frozen coast abruptly 

 rising from the ocean. This extraordinary spectacle was 

 of short duration, and was succeeded by another almost as 

 strange, when the sun, after gilding the higher peaks, rose 

 over the sea of mist, which began to heave and toss itself 

 into huge billows, as it were, until it gradually wreathed 

 itself about the hill we were on, and enveloped us in its 

 cold damp folds. 



As I was sure the " cheer " must be somewhere on the 

 hill, I was determined not to be beaten by them ; so the 

 third morning I took two or three men with me to mark 

 the birds from below, in case they flew downwards before 

 it was light enough for us to see them from above, as I 

 thought they must have done on the previous mornings. 

 I had in some way mistaken the hour, and reached the 

 ground much too early ; consequently we had to wait there 

 shivering with cold until daybreak. As the first streak of 

 light appeared, the cheer began their whistling call as usual, 

 and still our search for them was fruitless. When it grew 

 light enough to communicate with the markers, we learnt 

 from them that the whole brood had flown from the top of 

 the hill, and had lighted in some broken bushy ground below. 

 We had beaten all over this, and I was just about to give up 

 the pursuit as hopeless, when one of the men flung a stone 

 into some bushes where we had marked down a black 

 partridge, and out flew a cock-cheer. The sly old rascal 

 gave me a long shot, but a single pellet in the head at 

 last secured me my troublesome specimen. A good dog, 



