154 How I Became a Sportsman. 



and there they are hung up to dry, cool, 

 comfortable, clean, and respectable, with their 

 feathers nicely smoothed down. If the strings 

 are made long enough, two or even three birds 

 may go into each loop. 



Some years after this, when I had become 

 pretty well tired of shooting in enclosed coun- 

 ties, and was hankering after the wilds of 

 Dartmoor Forest, its primitiveness and freedom 

 from restraint, my eye caught an advertise- 

 ment in the 'Times' of a furnished cottage to 

 be let for a season on the borders of Dart- 

 moor. I at once entered into a negotiation 

 with the advertiser, and eventually took it. 

 He described the shooting as comprising 

 almost every variety of game, including black 

 cock, woodcock, snipe, partridge, and hares. 

 The first two would have had irresistible 

 charms for me if they had been there in any 

 number. No doubt all the birds and animals 

 which he said, existed there ; but alas ! how 

 few and far between ; however, I knew what to 

 expect, and was not disappointed. The cottage 

 was everything I could wish, having been 

 built purposely for a shooting and fishing box ; 

 and barring the difficulty of getting provisions. 



