44 FEATHERED GAME 
sore trial of your treasure’s temper and 
staunchness. Next time perhaps he may flush 
from under your very feet. In most cases his 
flight is not longer than from three to four hun- 
dred yards, so that, knowing your ground, you 
may get another chance if you fail to stop him 
the first time. It takes a good load of shot and 
that well placed, too, if this bold rover is to be 
your prize. He will fly till his last breath,— 
yes, and set his wings and scale even after that; 
or if only wing-broken will run and skulk and 
crawl into brush heaps until pursuit is useless. 
Many a grouse carries his death with him as he 
flies the hunter, when, if only followed, he would 
be found perhaps a hundred yards away, still 
and lifeless. They are the ‘‘grittiest’’ birds 
that dwell in our land. 
Perhaps some brother sportsman has seen a 
grouse when wounded and seemingly crazed, fly 
straight upward, struggling to the last gasp, 
then all at once collapse and come tumbling to 
the earth like a stone. Usually such birds are 
found to be shot through the eyes and brain. I 
lost one once in this manner, for he fell into the 
top of a clump of unclimbable ‘‘old original 
