AUTUMN SHOOTING. 319 
and low spots full of rank grass with briers, low bushes, 
and wintergreens or cranberries, such being the places in 
which they love to roost. 
The edges of the fields, along the hedgerows, in the 
angles of the snake-fences, or by the wall-sides, where 
sumachs and coarse weeds grow rank and tall, if the 
farmer be a careless one, and on the bushy verges of large 
woodlands, the bevies will generally be found. These places 
should, therefore, be the first beat, and then the middle of 
the fields, in which the birds comparatively seldom lie. 
When the dogs find their game, it is easy for a good 
sportsman to judge by the attitude and action of the 
animal, what game it is, whether wild or tame, stationary 
or on the move. If the pointer stands like a statue, with 
his stern outstretched and rigid, his whole frame quivering 
with nervous excitement, his eye glaring and his lip slaver- 
ing, the game is close before him. If he waver, wag 
his stern wistfully, and look back at his master, he is 
doubtful whether the game have not gone, or is not far 
away. If he crouch low, and show an eager and almost 
uncontrollable desire to crawl forward on his belly, there 
is surely a running bevy before him. 
In the first case, all that is necessary is to take such a di- 
rection in coming up to him, as will enable you to command 
a fair shot as the birds rise, and as will probably drive 
them in the direction of the ground which you propose to 
beat hereafter, and in which you would prefer to have 
them. That is, of course, covert of some kind—the easiest 
you can select, or brakes which you know or shrewdly 
suspect to contain woodcock. 
