GAME BIRDS AND WATER FOWL. 
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CHAPTER I. 
WHAT ARE GAME BIRDS? 
WE have here a wide subject to discuss; or^e that will 
take us far away from the fireside and the study, 
to wander where the prickly furze puts forth its golden 
blossoms, and the blue campanula swings its delicate bells in 
the fresh autumnal gale. On the wide wild moorland, and 
the heathery hillside ; through ferny woodland, and through 
thorny brake ; by loch and glen, and brawling mountain 
stream ; by placid lake, and along the shore, where the rude 
waves dash and break, and scatter their spray far up the 
beetling cliffs, tenanted by innumerable wild fowl, that fill 
the ujDper air with shrill and piercing cries, responsive to 
the clang and boom of the boisterous waves below. A 
scene like that described by Charlotte Smith at Beachy 
Head; whose base is lashed by the ever-restless ocean : — 
"Where inmates of the chalky cliffs, that soar 
The sides precipitous, with shrill harsh cry. 
Their white wings glancing in the level beams, 
The terns, and gulls, and tarrocks, seek their food, 
And the rough hollows echo to the voice 
Of the grey choughs and ever-restless daws, ' 
ith clamours not unlike the chiding hounds. 
Such are the scenes that we have, in fancy at least, to look 
upon ; and such are the sounds that must for awhile fill our 
