214 TJPLAKD SHOOTING. 



enougli to his birds. The subsequent proceedings all 

 depend on the horse. If that animal takes a notion to go 

 home just then — and under such circumstances the staid- 

 est old family horses often develop unaccountable kitten- 

 ishness — the hunter can do little but follow patiently 

 after, and pick his chariot off the first wire fence. He will 

 swear, but that won't help him. The etiquette of plover- 

 shooting admits of swearing when one' s horse runs away. 



"When it has been determined that the plover are 

 'using on' a certain piece of ground, the shooter, or 

 shooters — for several may practice this sport together 

 very nicely if their wagon be big enough — repair to that 

 neighborhood on almost any day, or at any time of the 

 day. The weather does not make any insuperable differ- 

 ence. There is no necessity to get out betimes for an 

 early morning hunt, nor is there any bundling up or 

 waiting on some lonesome stand, knee-deep in mud and 

 water. Plover-hunting is a leisurely, fair-weather sort 

 of sport, a truly dilettante sport, and if the plover- 

 hunter were not often a duck-hunter, in season, there 

 would be justice in the suspicion that he had something 

 of the sybarite in his disposition, rather than the rugged, 

 hardy spirit of the genuine hunter. 



" In the bright, warm days, however, when the blood 

 takes on a mellow mildness in the veins, and no other 

 game is in the land to stimulate the slumbering ambition, 

 the best of shooters might be forgiven for taking a day 

 at the plover, or perhaps two days, in the short season 

 of a few weeks when plover-shooting is at its best. And 

 let the older hunter take his days near the close of the 

 season, wlien the persistent pounding of the greenhorns 

 has rendered the birds more wild. There will then be an 

 added difficulty to the sport, which wUl give it additional 

 claim to consideration. Early in the season, before the 

 birds have mastered the fact that man is a ravenous and 



