302 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



barrels as soon as possible. It took quick shooting and a 

 hard-hitting gun to bag those veterans; we killed none 

 inside of forty yards, while most of them dropped nearer 

 sixty. During that day we bagged twenty-eight, and they 

 were the handsomest lot of grouse I ever saw, each one 

 being of unusual growth and of fully three pounds weight. 



Our English cousins, who have never experienced the 

 delights of pinnated grouse shooting, and who know of 

 these birds as they are in the summer months, at a time 

 when their young lives are as tender as those of the fee- 

 blest of birds, think that the bagging of them lacks the 

 spirit of sport found in hunting the heath cock of their 

 own country. To such my earnest desire is, that the fair 

 breeze of fortune will bring the white wings of some ves- 

 sel to our land, and that these gentlemen will be aboard, 

 and in the golden autumn, when the frost has touched 

 with gilded fingers the meadows and the uplands, cloth- 

 ing all Nature in her winter garments, that they may 

 partake of the indescribable pleasure of trying their skill 

 at our full-grown, vigilant grouse in a November stubble 

 or corn field, and they will say, as others have said, that 

 there is no upland bird harder to bag, and more thor 

 oughly appreciated, than the pinnated grouse of our land, 

 when killed on an October or November day. 



The thought has often been brought to many, whether 

 or not these birds migrate. Yes, they do; not, however, 

 in the manner of migrating wild fowl, but they work 

 slowly southward in large fiocks, apparently not with 

 the intention of avoiding cold weather, for they don't 

 seem to mind the cold, but most of them seem to desire to 

 spend the winter in places other than where reared. This 

 we know, for all through the winter months we find large 

 flocks where we had hunted during the fall and found no 

 birds. We notice them in driving across the country, and 

 especially when riding on the trains; they are a beautiful 



