ON THE GRAND PRAIRIE. 87 



that some artist had been there to sketch them on 

 the spot ! Nothing would I grudge for the picture. 

 The attitude of setter or pointer, when standing, is to 

 me the personification of grace and beauty. Well, 

 the old story : the birds were put up, so packed that we 

 all had difficulty in singling birds ; five more fell to our 

 lot ; the balance, after going about sixty rods, dropped, 

 scattered among a thick growth of ironweed. The dogs 

 must, on this occasion, have winded their game at least 

 two hundred yards off, so strong is the effluvium emitted 

 by this game and noble bird. In reading, the other day, 

 in a sporting periodical, I noticed that a correspondent, 

 in a very agreeable and readable letter, confessed that 

 himself and companion fired into the body of a covey. 

 Fie on him ! where are his modesty and sporting reputa- 

 tion first, to commit so gross an outrage, and secondly, 

 to blazen it to the world ? Does he not know that for 

 one bird he bags in this ignoble manner, several will 

 go off wounded, to die a lingering death, or, crippled, 

 fall a prey to the first filthy buzzard or rapacious hawk 

 that comes across him ? Gentlemen, when you shoot, 

 think of this, and do not uselessly destroy the precious 

 gifts of an ever-bountiful Providence. 



The majority of the last family we got possession of, 

 and ere noon had arrived, had seventy head of prairie 

 chicken fairly bagged. 



