380 With Rod and Gun hi New England 



the late fall affording sometimes a day's sport, which is in reality the only 

 result expected from the importations. 



OTf4Ef? GAME BI^DS. 



Sport derived from shooting game birds in the State, other than the 

 more prominent varieties already considered, may, perhaps, be properly 

 treated under one head. 



New Hampshire's coast line being of limited extent, but little of inter- 

 est can be said concerning " beach birds," so called ; while, presumably, 

 on the marshes at Rye and Hampton, some of the well-remembered visi- 

 tants of former years are occasionally seen, marsh-shooting is a sport of 

 the past. To us older gunners, as fond memories take us back to the 

 times when the New England marshes were alive with hundreds of black- 

 breasts, beetle-heads, doe birds, and winter yellow-legs, during the flights, 

 with a crack at curlew and " humility birds," often enough to make it inter- 

 esting, this condition brings many a sigh of regret; but the fact remains. 



Wood-ducks breed largely on the wooded streams of the State, and 

 black ducks in the interior are fairly common. 



Their systematic hunting, however, is nowhere indulged in, except at 

 Great Bay, where many local sportsmen regularly follow their favorite pas- 

 time of shooting " blacks." While it is no uncommon thing in other sec- 

 tions for an individual to get a successful shot at a bunch of ducks, in 

 many instances the opportunities come more by chance than otherwise. 



But one game bird remains to be mentioned — the upland plover, 

 known to shore gunners as the " highlander " ; correctly speaking, Bar- 

 tram's sandpiper, a crafty one and no mistake, and possibly the most diffi- 

 cult one to bring to bag, owing to his wary disposition and the unfavor- 

 able weather conditions which usually exist during the time he is with us. 



Probably, to most sportsmen who peruse these pages, this bird is 

 comparatively unknown, and to them I will say that his intimate acquaint- 

 ance will be cultivated with the most exasperating set-backs. 



Arriving with us early in the spring, they breed in elevated hilltop 

 pastures, where they remain among the bushes and hardhacks until the 

 haying is completed on the intervales, when they betake themselves to those 

 localities, remaining from the first till about the middle of August, when 

 they leave us. It is during this short period of midsummer that the sports- 

 man — weary of the long respite, since he placed his gun away in the 

 December before, and anxious to get himself in practice for the September 

 shooting soon to commence — does his plover shooting, or rather his plover 

 hunting, for at its best it is more hunting than shooting. 



Tramping the mowed fields all day under a blazing sun, chasing the 

 elusive birds from one spot to another, with only an occasional opportunity 



