2o8 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



intently for suspicious noises; or up among the tossing 

 sprays, as they leaped from one bough to another; 

 and, again, on the ground, as they played among the 

 fallen leaves or perched on the stumps and logs. But 

 the crowning triumph of all was one day when with 

 the big .44 I shot one while on the run at full speed 

 along the outspread limb of a beech, some fifty yards 

 away. I have since killed them with shotguns while 

 running, but never again have I got one on the "wing," 

 so to speak, with a rifle. For the boy to learn first to 

 shoot with a rifle is better than to begin with a shot- 

 gun. Any one can hit a squirrel with a shotgun, but 

 it requires considerable accuracy of aim and steadiness 

 of nerve to bring one down from the top of a hickory 

 Avith but a single bullet, and there is more satisfaction 

 in getting him then, and more real sportsmanship in 

 the hunting. It gives a squirrel at least some chance 

 for his life to hunt him with a rifle. Target practice 

 of some kind is essential to keep up one's accuracy of 

 aim, and some of the old beeches in the woods are 

 marked and well stocked with lead from my Henry, 

 where I practiced; and I never found that it hindered 

 my hunting with a shotgun to have attained some skill 

 beforehand, where it was necessary, in the use of the 

 rifle. I used to consider it, and it was, one of the 

 greatest pleasures I could have to bring a squirrel down 

 with one shot from my Henry from the top of a tall 

 shagbark or a beech, to see him fall and to hear him 

 splash through the branches, and then finally come with 

 a plunge and a thud to the ground at my feet. That 

 was a real achievement ! 



Sometimes a wounded squirrel will manage to crawl 



