200 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



at the time, it was one of those chance looks into 

 a dog's heart which a man is not favored with 

 every season. 



We found four coveys before sundown, and 

 came in at night pretty well fagged, with twenty- 

 five brace and an odd bird, exclusive of the cock 

 and the grouse. On this day's excursion, on the 

 tenth of November, we did not meet with a 

 single covey of birds which were not fully 

 fledged. 



The first thing now to be attended to, after 

 swallowing a glass of hot rum-punch and a 

 cracker, is to examine the dog's feet, wash them 

 with whiskey ; then see the animals well fed 

 and housed, with an abundance of water at their 

 command. The game is then to be strung and 

 hung out in a secure place, and the barrels of 

 the guns w r ashed out. This being done you 

 may then retire to your room, wash and change; 

 and, curious as it may seem to the uninitiated, 

 descend to the dining-room, a veritable novus 

 homo, a genuine new man, with an excellent 

 appetite for the substantial repast, which the 

 host is careful to prepare for the sportsman. If 

 ever a man enters into the heart of his dinner, so 

 to speak, it is after a day's hunt, when the juicy 

 tenderness of a beef-steak melts through and 



