140 The Grouse Family 



brush, and who openly yearned for chicken-shoot- 

 ing in the grass, and who still further had an exas- 

 perating habit of bawling, " Did-you-git-h-i-m ? " 

 every time a miss occurred, and invariably keeping 

 silent when the few kills were scored. 



" Pretty good — what there is of it," said the 

 old man, and when asked if there wasn't enough 

 of it, he replied, " Oh, yes, there's a-plenty of it 

 — such as it is." No bad description of the sport 

 in these covers. 



In British Columbia the sport, as found, could 

 not compare with that of the East. Those who 

 know the wonderful western province will readily 

 guess why. In many places the trees almost 

 rival the famous big conifers of California, and 

 they are crowded together as thickly as it is 

 possible for such mighty trunks to stand. Fre- 

 quently the lower spaces are filled with ferns of 

 such size and luxuriance as to suggest semitropic 

 lands rather than a portion of Canada. In such 

 cover the keenest of guns can do little or nothing. 

 The writer is over six feet tall, but in that cover 

 he felt like a veritable babe in the wood. The 

 size of the firs was almost oppressive — but the 

 ferns — ye gods ! such ferns. In places they grow 

 like the big western corn, close and rank, tower- 

 ing a yard or more above one's head. If any of 

 them come under the classification of " maiden- 



