PTARMIGAN-SHOOTING. 107 



firm, and at the same moment the ptarmigan flew, and was as 

 quickly brought low. 



The pack of six made straight for the first ground, and 

 their pertinacious pursuer followed, in the hope that if he 

 obtained a third meeting they ought to be less shy of his 

 advances. The rocks between me and the hollow where they 

 were feeding when first discovered were rather hurried over 

 than hunted, but all my vigilance and the utmost pains of 

 my careful dogs found no trace of them there. My plan, 

 therefore, was to take a wide circling cast both up and down 

 the hill, and, gradually contracting it, to leave " no stone 

 unsearched " where they could possibly have hidden. I had 

 barely reached the outermost, and what appeared to me the 

 least attractive, disc of my circle, when the setter pitched 

 sharply down with that self-satisfied look back to his master 

 which says as plainly as words, " I have them now." On 

 my getting to the dog's side, he rose and stepped briskly 

 forward to the top of a mound, under which the six birds 

 rose together. Two flew back again across the mountain, but 

 four dashed downwards, making for the peak below. The 

 whole lot were nearly out of reach, but I fired quick at the 

 old cock of the four, w T hen he dropped his legs and soon after 

 towered and fell. 



The three remaining birds being driven into lower and 

 easier ground, there was every prospect, by following quickly, 

 of soon coming on their traces again. After a flight, white 

 grouse as well as red are much inclined to pitch down under 

 what shepherds call " the snibs " (prominent points) of a hill. 

 As soon, then, as I had descended to their line and given the 

 dogs a fair wind, I began the quest of these excrescences, and 

 very soon was cheered by both dogs drawing to a dead point. 

 This time the game sprang fair, and I dropped one dead with 

 my first barrel and hit another badly with the second. 



The struck bird again dipped straight down-hill and settled 

 on the lowest shoulder of the mountain, where I had the good 



