Bob White, the Game Bird of America. 68 1 



• 

 Bob White is a tough and hardy little fellow, and the true 



sportsman, always a humane man, will remember this and endeavor 



to kill him outright. Often a bird will fly two or three hundred 



yards, though mortally wounded. It is the duty of all sportsmen 



to watch carefully the flight of the birds he has shot at, and his 



experience of the nature of their flight will tell him if the bird has 



been struck. If he concludes that he has been, then it is his 



bounden duty to bring that bird to bag, and that right quickly. 



The extraordinary vitality of this vigorous bird was once forcibly 

 impressed on me. A covey was flushed at about one hundred yards 

 from the edge of a wood. Only a few of the birds flew to the 

 woods. One of them, going at a tremendous velocity, crossed my 



tion at a distance of about forty yards. Holding my gun at 

 what I judged was the proper distance ahead of him, I fired. 

 This was the only shot fired at the birds making for the wood. 



u Sam," said I to our negro gillie, " I think I hit that bird." 



" No, sah," said Sam ; " I tink not, sah. He's a-gwine to whah 

 he forgit he lef suffin, sah !" 



Sam is a good marker, and has carefully watched the flight 

 of hundreds of birds shot at. Yet I could not entirely satisfy 

 myself that the bird was not fairly hit, though he kept straight 

 on in his vigorous flight. A sprained foot prevented rapid walk- 

 ing, and my companion entered the wood, with the dogs, before 

 ne. As I struck the edge of the woods I heard the report of 

 kta <jun, and, after proceeding about one hundred yards, I heard a 

 second shot, and in another instant a bird tumbled through the 

 air and fell about a dozen feet in advance of me. I called out: 



"I have them both!" 

 Both what?" said he. "I only shot one bird, and the other 

 flew away from your direction and I missed him clean." 



The bird my friend shot lay with his head toward me ; the 

 Other, a large cock, lay on his back with his bill pointing toward 

 the other bird, and not more than a foot from him. Both birds 

 warm. The large cock was the one I had fired at. He 

 struck fairly in the head and chest, and yet he had pitched 

 into the woods and gone altogether nearly two hundred yards 

 before he succumbed to his death-wounds. 



Rules for shooting are of value, and directions founded on 

 theory may serve to inform the beginner why he misses, and 



