200 AMERICAN GAME. 
babblers are couched silent in the soft, succulent young: 
grass. Loaded once more, “Hie! fetch!’ and what a 
race of emulation—mouthing their birds gently, yet 
rapturously, to inhale best the delicate aroma, not biting 
them, each cocker has brought in his bird, and they and ~ 
you, gentle reader, if you be the happy sportsman who 
possesses such a brace of beauties, are rewarded ‘ade- 
quately and enough. ; 
For. the rest, a short, wide-bored, double-barrel, an 
ounce of No. 8 shot, and an equal measure of Brough’s 
diamond-grain, will do the business of friend micrcptera, 
as effectually, at this season, as a huge, long, old-fashion- 
ed nine-pounder, with its two ounce charge; and it will 
give you this advantage, that it shall weigh less by three 
pounds, and enable you to dispense with a superfluous 
weight of shot, which on a hot July day, especially if 
you be at all inclined to what our friend Willis calls 
pinguitude, will of a necessity produce much exudation, 
and some lassitude. 
