PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 215 



played than in any of the instances previously 

 adduced.* It is necessary, however, to have 

 very sharp eyes, or you will fail to discover the 

 birds, and to shoot the lower ones first, as the 

 rustle attending their fall through the branches 

 of the tree, breaks the force of the spell, and 

 enables the rest to escape. We have never seen 

 this mode of shooting grouse succeed, except in 

 the month of September when the birds are 

 young, though we have repeatedly been assured 

 by farmers, that they have killed old birds 

 under precisely similar circumstances. 



Ruffed grouse shooting is generally laborious 

 and unsatisfactory work, though, as a variety, 

 we have sometimes enjoyed a half a day's sport 

 in the rugged hills of Bucks and Montgomery, 



* They sit upon the large limbs near the trunk of the tree, turn- 

 ing their heads from side to side, precisely as the chicken has been 

 observed to do under similar circumstances, and gazing down in 

 amazement at the dog, which animal would appear to exert as 

 powerful an influence over the birds through the medium of his 

 voice, as he does over water-fowl by his antics on the shore. Had 

 these mysterious powers of fascination been observed in the cat, 

 they would have went far to establish her supposed connection 

 with witches and warlocks, the first suspicions of which, no doubt, 

 rose out of her still and wierd-like gravity of demeanor. Tray's 

 spirit, however, shines too clearly through his clay for him ever to 

 be accused of leaning to the black art. 



