80 FIELD SHOOTING. 



game. I killed six thousand head of all sorts while 

 there — the most part, of course, being duck, snipe, 

 and golden plover. The grouse were extremely 

 abundant in the spring about there. At early- 

 morning the cock-grouse could be heard booming all 

 over, like the constant lowing of an immense herd 

 of cattle distributed in a great pasture. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that the booming of the grouse is 

 not like the lowing of bullocks; what 1 mean is 

 that the booming on every side pervaded the space 

 all around. Christian County is about thirty miles 

 southeast of Springfield, and is on the Illinois Cen- 

 tral Eailroad. At this time I hold the best place 

 for sport of all sorts in the field to be in the 

 tier of counties which includes Ford, Piatt, McLean, 

 and Champagne Counties, as well as Christian 

 County. Late in the fall, however, good grouse- 

 shooting is to be met with all over the State, un- 

 less it be down southwest in Egypt, where there 

 is but little prairie-land. As I have stated, great 

 numbers of grouse are bred in the wide prai- 

 ries which are still unbroken, and late in the 

 fall these grouse pack and distribute themselves 

 over the other parts of the State in vast numbers, 

 feeding in corn-fields and wheat, oat, and buckwheat 

 stubbles. Where I live the grouse are nearly as 



