100 FRANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



couch, lulled by the murmur of the wind in the never-silent 

 tree tops, by the far plash of falling waters, by the plaintive 

 wailino- of the whip-poor-will, and the joyous revelry of the dew- 

 drinkino- katydids — the sleep, under the blue vault of the skies, 

 o-uarded by the winking eyes of the watchful planets only, — 

 sweeter and sounder, lighter and more luxurious, than princes 

 catch on beds of eider-down and velvet. 



Lo ! you now, reader, have not we too caught the inspira- 

 tion, and ere we knew it, waxed poetical ! 



One thing alone is wanting to the perfection of summer 

 shooting as a sport — I speak not now of the unfitness of the sea- 

 son for hard exercise, — no season is, in truth, unfit for the dis- 

 play of manhood ! — nor of the unfitness of the half-grown broods 

 for slaughter ! — and that one thing is, the want of variety in the 

 species of game In autumn, hearty, jocund, brown autumn, the 

 woodman's sport is indeed manifold. Even when his dog has 

 pointed, though he may guess shrewdly from the nature of his 

 movements and the style of his point, the sportsman knows not 

 what may be the game which shall present itself to his skill. It 

 may be the magnificent Ruffed Grouse, whiiTing up with a flut- 

 ter and an impetus that shall shake the nerves of a novice ; it 

 may be a bevy of quail eighteen or twenty strong, crowding 

 and jostling one another in their anxiety to avoid the danger, 

 and distracting his aim by the multiplicity of objects ; it may be 

 a full-grown white-fronted Woodcock, soaring away with its 

 shar]! whistle high above the tree tops ; it may be the skulking 

 Hare, bouncing among the kalmias and rhododendrons, vulgarly 

 generalized as laurels — they might as well be called cabbages ! 

 — it may be Teal or Wood-duck, or if we are in the open, it may 

 be Snipe, skirring away zig-zag over the rushy letel. 



This it is which gives so strange a zest to the field sports of 

 an American autumn day, and which renders the autumn shoot- 

 ing of this country the wildest and most interesting of any it 

 has ever been my luck to encounter — of any, I presume, in the 

 world, unless it be that of Northern India, on the lower slopes, 

 and in the plains at the foot of the Himalayah Mountains. 



