80 FIELD SHOOTING. 



cock-grouse which have flown out of the bottoms 

 at early day are heard booing on the knolls and 

 ridges. Hawks of various kinds, large and small, 

 are wheeling about overhead, and far away, high 

 up in the distance, you may see the great eagle cir- 

 cling and sailing round about with motionless wings. 

 But of all the sights I have seen on the prairies, 

 the finest, the most striking and glorious, have 

 been on bright, frosty mornings in December, or 

 later on in the winter sometimes. On such a 

 morning, while the frost still hangs on the grass, 

 the prairie looks like a wide sea covered with 

 sprays of diamonds. The most beautiful sight I 

 ever saw in my life was on a prairie at Oliver's 

 Grove, near Chatsworth, Iroquois County, Illinois. 

 We went in the night to Chatsworth, where there 

 was no house then, intending to hunt turkeys at 

 Oliver's Grove at early morning. As there was 

 no house at Chatsworth Station, we stayed in the 

 car till daylight. It was a bright, clear morning 

 in December, and the sun, just risen, lit up all 

 the prairie with its horizontal, glancing rays. 

 Every blade of grass on the prairie, every tree in 

 distant grove, glistened and sparkled like diamonds 

 in strong light. Away in the distance, five hun- 

 dred yards out upon the prairie, there stood two 



