102

Concord, Mass.
1916
Aug. 30
to
Nov. 4

Pheasant shooting

low-drooping fronds, while every now and then some bird
more hurried or heedless than the rest might strike a
slender, semi-prostrate stalk hard enough to make it
tremble perceptibly.
  During September and October I never once
noted more than three Pheasants in the course of a 
single day, but four were seen in the Berry Pasture
on November 1 [November 1, 1916] and six on the 10th [November 10, 1916]. The first one shot,
a splendid cock, was instantly killed and quickly found
lying back upward in a matted bed of low shrubbery. The
other, an adult female, fell broken-winged & being otherwise 
unhurt made such prompt use of her legs that she would
doubtless never have been seen again had not "Timmy" trailed
her through dense brush, for upward of sixty yards, to a 
ground juniper beneath which she lay crouching. This seems
worthy of record because it has so often been asserted 
that no dog can ever overtake a merely broken-winged Pheasant
except, perhaps, when pursuing it by sight, in open ground