174 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



alders, not above two or three yards square, I flushed a bird 

 which flew out to him. He fired. I called out to enquire whe- 

 ther he had killed, and as he answered " yes," I heard the bird 

 flapping its wings on the ground, in the death-struggle, as I ima- 

 gined. Knowing that he could recover the bird, in the open 

 ground, I beat out the thicket thoroughly, and left it, satisfied 

 that it contained no other bird, though I had some difficulty in 

 getting one of my Setters away from what I supposed to be a 

 field mouse. On joining my friend, he told me that the bird had 

 flapped up, when he was in the act of laying his hand upon it, 

 and had staggered away, seeming every moment on the point of 

 falling, so that he did not care to fire at it again, until it got out 

 of shot ; but that he had marked it down to a yard, in a thick 

 b'rush fence, three or four hundred yards away. On going to the 

 place, the dogs took the scent readily ; but, while they were 

 trailing it, the bird rose, a hundred yards off*, flapping and stag- 

 gering about, as if severely hurt ; and flew some three or four 

 hundred yards farther from the thicket in which we first started 

 it, and dropped again in a piece of thick hill-side coppice. I 

 marked the bird accurately by the top of a pine tree, and off" we 

 set in pursuit, I more than half suspecting that the bird was un- 

 wounded. Scarce had we entered the covert, when up whizzed 

 the identical bird fresh and sound, from the very brake in which 

 I had marked him, and away like a bullet through the tree tops. 

 80 thoroughly convinced was I, that, though I could have killed 

 the bird with ease, I would not fire at it ; but to convince my 

 still doubting friend, we walked back to the little tuft in which 

 we first sprung the cock ; he promising not to fire if we should 

 again flush her. My dogs were not well in the alders before 

 the bird rose again, and was going away at her best pace, when 

 my friend's shot stopped her, to my infinite disgust. He is a 

 very quick shot, and in the excitement of the moment forgot 

 everything except the game and the fury of pursuit. 



Almost at the same moment, old Chance — he was the best re- 

 triever I ever saw in any country — picked up from the spot 

 where I had supposed he was snuffing after a field-mouse 



