PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 207 



appeared to have some especial pique. In a 

 minute or two he retreated as before, again tak- 

 ing his station on the summit of the hill, and ap- 

 parently keeping a sharp look-out. At the very 

 next shot, down he came the third time, when, 

 instead of forming a square to receive him, I 

 broke into an uncontrolable fit of laughter, which 

 so enraged T., who had come up in the mean- 

 time, that he levelled his piece at his head, and 

 would have put a stop to his peregrinations for- 

 ever, but for my earnest entreaties to do him no 

 harm. He soon returned to his post of observa- 

 tion, and we afterwards learned from a near 

 neighbor of the farmer's, that the mere report of 

 a gun was sufficient to arouse his fiercest ire, 

 which circumstance was attributed to his having 

 accidentally been shot a year or two before. On 

 the succeeding fall a party from the city got 

 into trouble about the same dog, one of them 

 having shot him dead, while charging him like 

 a perfect fury in a stubble-field. 



Having killed thirty odd brace of snipe in the 

 corn-field, and along the run, we were returning 

 to the mill by the lane, when we encountered 

 Mr. Sluicedam's friend and his family returning 

 home from their visit, and a pretty rage the man 

 flew into when he spied the birds in the netting, 



