248 



FRANK FORESTER S FIELD i^POKTS. 



GROUSE SHOOTING. 



HIS noble sport I have never my- 

 self had an opportunity of enjoying, 

 ^though I still live in the hope of 

 finding myself on some fine autum. 

 nal morning, in the Western Prairies, 

 w^ith two or three brace of good dogs, 

 a staunch companion, and all appur- 

 tenances suitable for a month's sport. 

 They are in all respects the noblest bird, which is to be shot 

 over Pointers in the United States ; and the vast numbers in 

 which they are still found in their own Prairie-land, the magni- 

 ficent range of country which is spread out before the eye of 

 the sportsman, the openness of the shooting, and the opportu 

 nity of obsei-ving all the motions of the dogs, must render this 

 sport, like Red Grouse shootins^ in Great Britain, the queen of 

 American field sports. 



In the State of New Jersey, it is said that a i'ew liirds still 

 linger among the sandy pine barrens, along the southern shore, 

 but if so, they have become so rare, that it is worse than useless 

 to attempt hunting for them. On the brush plains of Long 

 Island they were entirely extinct, even before my arrival in 

 America. Among the scrub oaks in the mountains of Pike and 

 Northampton counties, in Eastern Pennsylvania, a few packs 

 are supposed to be bred yearly, and a few sportsmen are annu- 

 ally seduced into the attempts to find them. But annually the 



