l66 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



found in a country that has been much gunned it is 

 well able to take care of itself. By much training it 

 has acquired a great variety of tricks and stratagems 

 which it practices to the utter discomfiture of many 

 gunners. It may rise far ahead of the dog and out 

 of shot and fly straight up a mountainside out of sight, 

 so that it is impossible to mark it down ; or if for some 

 good reason of its own it continues to lie, it will very 

 likely let man and dog pass it, and then when the man 

 is tangled up in difficult brush and is trying to push 

 his way ahead, the partridge with thunderous roar will 

 rise behind him and disappear before he can free him- 

 self from his fetters and bring the gun to his shoulder. 

 Very commonly the partridge runs rapidly ahead of the 

 dog, sometimes in a straightaway course, apparently 

 to make sure that it will be well out of gunshot before 

 it rises, or, again, it may run straight away, and then, 

 bending off to right or left, may come around nearly 

 to its trail again so that its pursuers will pass it. This 

 is the precise trick played by the moose and sometimes 

 by deer and bear when the conditions are favorable for 

 tracking them. A favorite device is to rise behind a 

 tree trunk, a clump of brush, a great rock or even a 

 stone wall, and to keep this barrier between itself and 

 the gunner until safely out of range. 



The flight of the grouse is very swift, and though 

 when well under way usually flying straight, yet often 

 it rises on a curve, so that one may easily shoot behind 

 it. Although often rising from the ground with a 

 thunderous roar of wings, which may upset the nerves 



