LEAVES FROM A GAME BOOK. 61 



in country pursuits and be content with a limited amount 

 of society, it must frankly be owned that this sort of 

 existence is but a dull one for them. While I was at 

 Glassaugh my host came out every day in a bath chair 

 pulled by a donkey, and placing himself in front of the 

 fields we were beating, he always contrived to get a few 

 good driven shots, and as long as birds flew to his left 

 he was very certain of killing. 



During my stay here I killed, out of a turnip field 

 on the 15th October, a short-horned owl — an unusually 

 early date on which to see one of these wanderers 

 over the whole surface of the globe, for, though they 

 breed here, they seldom arrive before the month of 

 November. I was quite sorry I shot it, for they are 

 harmless birds and splendid mousers, but I had just 

 got a woodcock — probably a home-bred bird — out of the 

 same field, and in a bad dull light I took the owl to be 

 another one. 



1881. 



My next trip worth mentioning was in August, 1881, 



when, receiving an invitation from my old friend Henry 



E 2 



