86 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



right; he blazed away, and at the shot the bird sprung up 

 six or eight feet into the air, with a sharp staggering 

 flutter. "Killed dead!" cried I; "well down again, Fat 

 Tom." But to my great surprise the grouse gathered 

 wing, and flew on, feebly at first, and dizzily, but gaining 

 strength more and more as he went on the farther. At 

 the last, after a long flight, he treed in a tall leafless pine. 



"Run after him, Frank," Archer called to me, "you 

 are the lightest; and we'll beat up the swale till you re- 

 turn. You saw the tree he took?" 



"Aye, aye!" said I preparing to make off. 



"Well ! he sits near the top — now mind me ! no chivalry, 

 Frank ! give him no second chance — a ruffed grouse, dart- 

 ing downward from a tall pine tree, is a shot to balk the 

 devil — it's full five to one that you shoot over and behind 

 him — give him no mercy!" 



Off I went, and after a brisk trot, five or six minutes 

 long, reached my tree, saw my bird perched on a broken 

 limb close to the time-blanched trunk, cocked my Joe 

 Manton, and was in the very act of taking aim, when 

 something so peculiar in the motion of the bird attracted 

 me, that I paused. He was nodding like a sleepy man, 

 and seemed with difiiculty to retain his foothold. While 

 I was gazing, he let go, pitched headlong, fluttered his 

 wings in the clealh-struggle, yet in air, and struck the 

 ground close at my feet, stone-dead. Tom's first shot had 

 cut off the whole crown of the head, with half the brain 

 and the right eye; and after that the bird had power to 

 fly five or six hundred yards, and then to cling upon its' 

 perch for at least ten minutes. 



Rejoining my companions, we again went onward, slay- 

 ing and bagging as we went, till when the sun was at 

 meridian we sat down beside the brook to make our frugal 

 meal — not to-day of grilled woodcock and champagne, but 

 of hard eggs, salt, biscuit, and Scotch whiskey — not so 

 bad either — nor were we disinclined to profit by it. We 

 were still smoking on the marge, when a shot right ahead 

 told lis that our out-skirting party was at hand. 



All in an instant were on the alert; in twenty minutes 

 we joined forces, and compared results. We had twelve 

 grouse, five rabbits, seventeen woodcock; they, six gray 

 squirrels, seven grouse, and one solitary cock — Tim, proud 

 as Lucifer at having led the field. But his joy now was 



