THE PINNATED GROUSE. "5 
‘What a pity you lost that one,” I said, in a consola- 
tory tone. 
“It is not lost,” was the answer. ‘‘It has gone to- 
wards the ridge, where we may find it, as I gave it a 
dose of No. 10, and it must be badly hit. 
Thad been using No. 8 shot, and thought it light enough 
for prairie chickens even at that season, so I suggested 
that she ought to try it, but she quietly said that No. 
9 or 10 was heavy enough, as the birds were young, 
tardy in flushing, and laid well to the dogs; and as she 
seemed to know more about the matter than I did, I de- 
cided that I had been somewhat hasty in giving advice. 
After the dogs had found the dead birds, she said she 
had marked down the flushed brood near the top of the 
ridge, but that it would be better to beat in the direction 
they had taken than to drive there rapidly, as the inter- 
vening space was, no doubt, well stocked with game. 
Acting on her suggestion, I followed the dogs in the car- 
riage, and whenever they came to a point I stepped out, 
flushed the bird, and, owing to its tameness, generally 
bagged it, as its flight was rather slow and straight ahead, 
and it seldom rose until I was within a few feet of it. 
The veriest tyro could, of course, grass his chickens un- 
der such circumstances, for very few of them required 
the second barrel. The few birds that did not fall at the 
first shot were those which flew quartering, and received 
the iron hail in the posterior instead of the anterior 
part of the body, but only a small number of these es- 
caped, owing to the closeness to which they allowed us 
to approach eré they took to flight. We worked the 
ground as far as the crest of a high ridge which was 
crowned by a cornfield, a distance of three or four. miles, 
and shot nearly all the way, as the birds rose singly or 
in small packs, and flew only a few hundred yards before 
alighting again. It took us about two hours to go that 
distancc, and when we halted near the maize field, about 
