UPLAND SHOOTING. ^ 47 



wonderful accuracy, rapidity and deliberate promptitude of aim 

 and execution, backed as these are by the great improvements 

 in the art of gunnery, and by the vast superiority of the percus- 

 sion to the Hint lock, are such as would make our ancestors, of 

 a century since, despair amid their admiration — such as consti- 

 tute the tirst-rate game shot on the wing, decidedly the greatest 

 marksman and artist with the gun, be the other what he may. 



For, without disparaging the beautiful practice of the rifle or 

 pistol, it maybe artirmed safely that it is merely mechanical, and 

 attainable by every one possessed of a steady hand and a true 

 eye ; while I know not what of calculation, of intuition, almost 

 of inspiration, is not needed to constitute a crack shot. As my 

 poor friend. Cypress, Jun., said, in one of his inimitably witty 

 false quotations, purporting to be from Pliny's chapter on Black 

 Ducks, " Legere quidem et scribere est poedagogi, sed optime col- 

 Ihieare est Dei,^'' which he rendered somewhat thus, " A credita- 

 ble scholar can be made by the schoolmaster, but a crack shot 

 is the work of God," the Latinity being equal to the truth of 

 the apopthegm. 



Now, without pretending that I can give every person a re- 

 ceipt whereby he can become a " crack shot," which no one, I 

 believe, can be, unless he is born to that good eminence, or even 

 presuming that I can make him a good sportsman, I shall pro- 

 ceed to set down such facts with regard to the habits and haunts, 

 the seasons and the instincts of game, as I can derive from the best 

 sources, with such directions for the pursuit and killing of them 

 as many years experience has led me to consider the most likely 

 to attain success. 



And first of all, we will consider what animals come under the 

 head of upland game, and thence proceed to their generic distinc- 

 tions and habits, as recorded by our greatest naturalists, after 

 which we shall be led in due season to my own personal experi- 

 ences and observations. 



Our upland game consists then, as we find it here in the 

 northern and north-eastern parts of North America, of three 

 species of grouse proper — one of them very rare and very rarely 



