258 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



they scamper off to their holes at sound of a footstep. There is a 

 rustle among the grass not twenty yards off, and you see a tiny 

 yellow head with black stripes on it raised above the tufts. Then 

 it disappears suddenly, to pop up again many yards further. It 

 is a stoat hunting some game, and he pursues it with unfaltering 

 instinct. When next the head is shown a clever shot lays it low, 

 and then a rabbit darting across an opening from one remorseless 

 foe falls victim to another not less sure or deadly. 



Now we work on up the coombe towards a rushy bog, and 

 cartridges of smaller shot are slipped into the barrels, for we 

 know that presently snipe will be rising in zig-zag flight from 

 beside the little rill that trickles slowly down there. In a few 

 minutes we have bagged all that can be found, and then we turn 

 for the four-mile walk homeward, adding two brace of partridges 

 to the miscellaneous collection as we cross the stubble field, and 

 getting another woodcock among the birches where shadows 

 begin to deepen, so that one can hardly see to shoot. After such 

 aday of pleasant exercise and varied sport the homely dinner of 

 a moorland manor house is better than any feast to which 

 fastidious gourmets can sit down in crowded cities. 



