I04 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



game cart with Pheasants. The fact is, a Blackcock 

 takes a deal more " getting," as the phrase is, than 

 a cock Pheasant, and, when bent on such an errand 

 single-handed everything must be shaped to that 

 end. Other game for the moment must be 

 disregarded. This, of course, does not apply when 

 one is walking over an open moor, where Grouse and 

 Snipe are likely to be met with, and where Black- 

 game will often rise from the heather within shot, 

 especially if one is shooting over dogs. But in the 

 coverts, when the birds are sitting on the birch 

 trees, or on the horizontal branches of the larches, 

 listening to every sound that indicates the approach 

 of an intruder, if a Blackcock is wanted, everything 

 else should be unmolested. A crossing rabbit 

 every now and then may offer a tempting shot, and 

 a hare may sit up occasionally just to show where he 

 is ; but a shot at either would be fatal to success with 

 the nobler game. 



Well do I remember an excursion of this kind 

 one day towards the end of September. It had 

 been raining all the morning, and Grouse-hawking, 

 which was the order of the day, was voted impos- 

 sible. The Hawks were all ready, and in great form, 

 for they had been flying, some of them, nearly 

 every day since August 12, and had acquitted them- 

 selves well. The rain had now come to spoil sport 

 in that direction, and the question was, what was 

 to be done ? In the lone house on the moor there 

 was no billiard table (that unfailing resource in 

 other houses on a wet day), and, my host having 

 decided to stay indoors and write letters, I was left 



