386 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



evitably there was .a miss now and then, when a walk- 

 ing bird would unexpectedly stop, or would move its 

 head to one side just as the trigger was drawn; but 

 as I say, we used to be able to cut the .heads off four 

 out of five. 



In the same way, when a brood of dusky grouse flew 

 into a tree, and stood there unfrightened by the report 

 of the rifle, a number of them could be secured, pains 

 being taken always to shoot the lowest bird in def- 

 erence to an aged tradition in order that others might 

 not be alarmed by a fluttering body falling close to 

 them. 



One of the best morning shootings that I ever had 

 at dusky grouse was in northwestern Montana, on 

 one of the high benches that overlook the St. Mary's 

 Lakes. It was a rounded knoll an old lateral mo- 

 raine a mile or two long, once overgrown by aspens, 

 which had been killed by fire and had now fallen and 

 rotted. A new growth of aspens, just starting, reached 

 only about up to the knee. Among these little aspens 

 grew huckleberries, and the ground was more or less 

 carpeted with the vines of the bearberry the smoking 

 weed called "larbe," perhaps a corruption of the trap- 

 per French word I'herbe. On these berries several 

 broods -of grouse were feeding, and after camp had 

 been made near the upper end of the knoll I took my 

 shotgun and walked back over the ground where sev- 

 eral birds had been started. 



It was not long before, with a thunderous roar, a 

 full-grown bird rose but a few yards before me, and, 



