64 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



he heard the click of the capped gun-locks, after 

 the birds had been flushed and killed. 



We now proceeded to the lower meadows, over 

 which the birds had scattered, and the excellence 

 of the dogs in finding the game, now spread over 

 a wide extent of country, was very apparent. 



The superior swiftness of the setter gave him 

 at first some advantage ; but after reaching the 

 improved pasture grounds still further down, 

 where the earth was drier, the sagacity which 

 Czar showed in avoiding wide, circling and ex- 

 cursive ranges, and the faculty which he seemed 

 to possess of piloting the shooter directly to the 

 moist spots where the birds lay, gave him in the 

 end full as many points. 



Upon comparing notes at sundown we found 

 that, as usual, neither of us could boast of having 

 greatly exceeded the other in the number of shots 

 bagged, which amounted in all to thirty-six 

 brace.* 



The birds were small and thin, but they laid 



* Early in the spring the birds frequent wet stubble-fields in 

 sheltered situations, a few miles inland from the great water 

 courses, and we have often killed numbers of them in such locali- 

 ties, when very few were to be found upon the meadows. No 

 doubt the worms work nearer to the surface in low, cultivated 

 grounds, than upon the broad, exposed surface of meadow land. 



