PRAIKIE CHICKENS — PINNATED GROUSE. 289 



beauty with the maple,- leaves and the changing color of 

 the sumac, how often have Felo and I stood together in 

 the cold, bleak marsh, when the leaden clouds skurried 

 athwart the skies, and the north wind swerved within 

 gunshot for us, the noble mallard, the plunging red- 

 head, the swishing blue-bill, or the dainty teal; Felo 

 then, his sparkling eyes first sighting the game, would 

 beam on me in mute appeal, fearing lest I might not see 

 the incoming birds; or, perhaps, startled by that well- 

 known cry, the grating " me-amph," I would glance o'er 

 head and see a young drake climbing in air, his red feet 

 extended, his neck curved, glorious to my youthful eyes 

 in all his gorgeous dress of velvet-green, chestnut, and 

 white. Sweet are the recollections of those childhood 

 days, those days of blessed memory! When the threads 

 of time in their silvery strands streak our hair, those 

 early days return to us with realistic vividness, and in 

 dreamy retrospection we live again our Heaven on earth. 

 Now, when for hunting prairie chickens I advocate 

 the use of a dog other than the setter, let not the lover of 

 that breed say I am prejudiced, do not know them, or do 

 not like them, for I do know thein and like them. Aye! 

 a noble race of dogs are they, to the hunter's heart the 

 noblest of them all, and when, in the selection of a 

 dog for prairie chicken hunting, I choose the pointer, it 

 is not that I forget the good qualities of the setter, but 

 because the setter can not stand the heat of our August 

 sun as can the pointer. I have owned them both, hunted 

 them side by side, season after season, and am speaking 

 not unadvisedly, but after the results of years of practical 

 experience. I shall not treat of the way in which a dog 

 should be trained to hunt prairie chickens, for other gen- 

 tlemen, in this book, have written of the manner of break- 

 ing them for other upland game birds, and the dog that 

 is thoroughly broken to hunt quail, woodcock, ruffed 



19 



