64 FIELD SHOOTING. 



different, as will be specially noticed further on. 

 A cloudy day, cool air, the dogs feeling and 

 working well, plenty of grouse in the stubbles, 

 'and the sportsman out of the glaring sunshine and 

 able to shoot deliberately and well, make great 

 enjoyment and a good bag. On the clear days, 

 when the grouse have left the stubbles for the 

 prairie-grass, and corn, instead of shooting all the 

 time until you are tired, as you will be before 

 night, until you have been seasoned and got into 

 hard condition of muscle and wind, lay off in some 

 house, or your camp, or in your wagon in the 

 shade, if you can find it, until about four or half- 

 past four o'clock in the afternoon. Then it will 

 be time to begin to beat the stubbles again. The 

 grouse will" have come, or will be coming, on to 

 them again from the resorts in which they spent the 

 hot hours of the day ; and you and your dogs, being 

 refreshed and rested, will be in good fettle for the 

 sport. The sun will get low, and finally go down 

 over the distant swells of land to the westward ; 

 the dew will begin, insensibly to you, to fall ; the 

 dogs will find the birds easily, they will lie well, 

 and you may shoot as long as you can see in the 

 twilight. 



In some parts of Illinois, Iowa, and other 



