288 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



bea^^ty, or Ms admiration of well-known sterling qualities 

 in a certain breed of dogs, to influence his choice. To me, 

 the most beautiful dog that ever skimmed the field is 

 the setter, English, Irish, or Gordon, as the case may be; 

 there is a dash and vim to b^ seen in the actions of these 

 dogs that causes my heart to beat with delight. In the 

 autumnal September days, I have so often seen them skirt 

 the plain after pinnated grouse, or silently and grandly 

 working among the bogs and fences for that grayish imp, 

 jacksnipe, which, like a flash, streaks the dead-brown 

 grass in his eccentric flight, only to be quickly brought 

 down by a shot from our guns, while there dies in its 

 white throat that enervating "scaipe, scaipe." 



In the russet woodland, the drumming ruffed grouse 

 lives among his kind, and thrills us through and through 

 with startled expectancy when he springs from behind 

 the old decayed log, and darts through the thickly 

 branched trees. After long years, still fresh and green 

 is the memory of the summer-time in the dear old island, 

 where my early love, the saucy woodcock, made his home 

 among the alders, willows, and brakes; of the placid 

 pond with its silvery sheen, the trembling leaves of the 

 aspen, the delicate, sensuous perfume of the pond lilies, 

 and before me, in grand rigidity, my companion, my 

 protector, my faithful Felo, in his glossy silken coat, 

 pointing out this nocturnal bird; the whistling cock just 

 about to dart from the nearest tree, the deep report, the 

 drifting feathers, and then, at my feet, with deep-brown 

 eyes looking with undying love into mine, my faithful set- 

 ter handing me our bird, and the golden bars of sunlight, 

 symbolic of the brightness of my young life, streaming 

 down through the quivering leaves. And then a few 

 months later, in the golden autumn, in October, when 

 the grass was brown and sere, crisp with the brilliant 

 coating of frost, and the purple wild grapes vied in 



