THE DUSKY GROUSE. 143 
appreciate my sentimentalism at the time, so he rallied 
me good naturedly on my sudden fit of goody-goodiness, 
and hinted that I ought to join an infant class and help 
them in singing that highly novel composition :— 
“Hark, to the woods, the sound of a gun, 
The wounded bird flutters and dies,— 
I'm sure it is wicked for nothing but fun, 
To shoot the poor bird as it flies.” 
‘That is very good so far as it goes,” I exclaimed, 
“Cand I would be willing to subscribe to it to a certain 
extent.” 
*¢J don’t believe in shooting for fun, either,” he said, 
“but I do believe in killing birds for food, else what use 
on earth are they?” 
Whirr! whirr! whirr! Three flights of grouse rose up 
not thirty feet away from us. ‘‘Jewhittaker”! ex- 
claimed Smith, “but they startled me. J must have the 
grouse ague to be scared in this manner. 
«‘They are all in the same tree,” I replied, ‘“‘so you 
need not have the ague long. Come on.” 
We started off on a run and were soon at the base of the 
tree in which they had sought shelter, but on looking up 
among the foliage we could see no signs of them. We 
peered and peered until we strained our eyes, and still 
failed to detect anything animate, but as I was acquaint- 
ed with the peculiar habit the birds have of standing mo- 
tionless on a branch, I suggested that we should fire 
simultaneously at any excrescences on the boughs, in 
order to rout them, and the idea being acceptable, we 
blazed away at a large limb, which seemed to be full of 
knobs. Our fire was answered by an alarmed cluck, and 
the startling whirr of rushing wings, and though the 
greater portion of the birds flew away, yet three came 
tumbling down with such rapidity that Smith said it was 
raining grouse. Having marked down the fugitives, we 
