254: AMEEICAN GAME. 



denizen of swarming cities, may take his leisure with 

 his gun " in the wide vale, or by the deep wood-side," 

 and enjoy the rapture of those sylvan sports which he 

 may not participate in sweltering July, in which they 

 are alas ! permitted by ill-considered legislation, in 

 every other state, save thine, konest and honorable 

 Massachusetts.* 



In truth there is no period of the whole year so well 

 adapted, both by the seasonable climate, and the state 

 of the country, shorn of its crops, and not now to be 

 injured by the sportsman's steady stride, or the gallop 

 of his high-bred setters, both by the abundance of game 

 in the cleared stubbles and the sere woodlands, and by 

 the aptitude of the brisk, bracing weather, for the 

 endurance of fatigue, and the enjoyment of manful 

 exercise, as this our favorite November. 



In this month, the beautiful Huffed Grouse, that 

 mountain-loving and man-shunning hermit, steals down 

 from his wild haunts among the giant rhododendrons, 



* A law was passed, during tne spring' of the present year, in that 

 respectable and truly conservative State, by which the murder of un- 

 fledged July Woodcock, by cockney gunners, was prohibited ; and the 

 close time judiciously prolonged until September. The debate was 

 remarkable for two things, the original genius with which the Hon. 

 Member for Westboro' persisted that Snipe are Woodcock, and Wood- 

 cock Snipe, all naturalists to the contrary notwithstanding ; and the 

 pertinent reply to the complaint of a city member, that to abolish July 

 shooting would rob the city sportsman of his sport viz., that in that 

 case it would give it to the farmer. Marry, say we, amen, so be it I 



