106 AMERICAN GAME. 
On the second occasion, I was shooting on the Chat- 
ham meadows, in company with Mr. Nicholls, late of 
H. M. 82d Reg’t. The birds were wild, the day windy, 
and the ground too wet for birds to liewell. At last we 
marked three down together in a small meadow, bor- 
dered by a very broad fen ditch of eighteen or twenty 
feet, and half that depth with clean cut. banks, nearly 
perpendicular. There was nearly no covert on the 
meadow. ; 
Our setters drew up carefully—stood perfectly dead 
when we saw them drop, looked wildly about for a mo- 
ment, much puzzled at seeing nothing rise, then drew 
on slowly and foot by foot, to the edge of the broad 
dyke, where they again stood steadily. When we 
reached the bank, the three birds rose, out of shot, in 
the bare marsh beyond. In all they had run about three 
hundred yards, besides swimming the brook. Previous 
to seeing that, I should have fancied the birds had 
taken wing, and beaten no further than to the water- 
course. Now I should certainly cross it, and try, before 
abandoning the game, whether the dogs could not make 
them out on the farther bank. 
To this, I annex an account of a veritable day’s sport, 
which occurred precisely as it is here set down, to the 
smallest incident, to the author, while shooting over a 
superb brace of setters, purchased of that well known 
sportsman, “ Dinks” of Amherstburgh, in company with 
a crack shot and boon companion, now departed. 
