1 
•where there is danger in the way. If sud¬ 
denly roused, they lly lip as already de¬ 
scribed; if they catch the alarm, and have 
time, they will run out to the edge of the 
cover, and tly down the wind so swiftly and 
slyly that unless you are mighty quick they 
will he out of shot, before you can say “ Jack 
Robinson.” 
There is always a “cock of the walk” in 
every locality, whether it be city, town, or 
moorland. And the bully of the last named 
is the black cock. He is the mortal enemy 
of grouse, and drives them before him as 
some old Dogberry or beadle of the parish 
drives the naughty boys. Wherever you 
meet with this impudent hector, shoot him 
without mercy. Treat him as vermin catch¬ 
ers treat stoats, skunks and weasels; or as 
you would treat a villainous poacher who 
kills birds out of season, or robs the nest of 
its eggs, or who uses nets to destroy this 
noble game. 
We, alas! arc doomed to lose our beauti¬ 
ful pinnated grouse, our beautilhl prairie- 
bird, through these same rascally poachers. It, 
grieves me beyond words to say how sorry I 
am at the thought even of what would cer¬ 
tainly be so great, a national calamity. Our 
State Legislatures are waking up to a sense 
of this misery at last, and enacting wise laws 
for the better protection of all game. Rut, 
until the selfish people who make a living 
and even fortunes out of this common prop¬ 
erty of the nation—not. by fair means and in 
season, but by the foulest engines Of dest ruc¬ 
tion and out of season—are induced by rea¬ 
son or summary and severe punishment to 
desist, from their murderous practices, there 
is no good in these laws. They are, and 
will be, inoperative. 1 confess to a great 
love for these poor bright birds. It is cheer¬ 
ing to see them on our prairies and in the 
woods, and round the, rural homesteads of 
the West.,—1 say West, for they have long 
been destroyed in the East, and 1 only won¬ 
der that the robin itself is held free from in¬ 
discriminate and universal massacre. 
What a proud, beautiful bird is our pin¬ 
nated grouse as it walks erect in the fields! 
not so beautiful as the ruffed grouse, to be 
sure; but then, how wo should miss it in the 
landscape! Its habits are nearly altogether 
the same as those of its English contemporary, 
and how clean it is and dainty of its pretty 
person! In the middle of the day you will 
i see them dusting their feathers to cleanse 
them from insects, and, although they can 
go a long while without water, yet they 
love ablution from all dirt as much as a 
Catholic Ids absolutions from all sins. Like 
the grouse, too, they are very swill and 
In early morning they 
BY JANUARY SEARLE. 
AiiKiist Sports with the (Utu. 
Tnu Yorkshire moors are, for the most 
part, well stocked with grouse, but I cannot 
say as much for those of Scotland. In the 
one country they are well preserved, and a 
poacher who should be caught upon them 
would soon find his way within the prison 
bars. In the other country they are not so 
particular, and the moors arc devastated with 
a pack of locust shooters who kill off the 
young grouse as soon as they can get on the 
wing, and care neither for law nor the con¬ 
tinuance of game in the land. The young 
are hatched late in April or early in May, 
according to the season, and it is a crime to 
shoot them before they are strong on the 
wing. Often, however, wild lads and roving 
Peter Bells will take them when they are 
but “cheepers.” It is very easy to shoot 
them when they are young, blit, it takes a 
crack shot to bring them down when they 
are old enough to take care of themselves. 
They arc very peculiar in their habits, and, 
unlike quails, partridges,or prairie-chickens, 
if they are scattered, they will remain soli¬ 
tary all day, nor will they come together 
again at night. They have no instincts for 
family gatherings at prayer-time, but wait 
with philosophical coolness until chance 
brings them to their lost brothers and sisters, 
which mostly happens at feeding time. In 
times of storm and rain they assemble in 
coveys and “pack” altogether, as if they 
were terrified at the savage aspect, of uature 
ami needed company, for the same reason 
that the school-boy in passing a churcli-yard 
at night, whistles aloud to keep his courage 
lip. As soon as the sun comes out, how¬ 
ever, and the rolling anthems of the storm die 
out in echoes on the distant hills, they dis¬ 
solve all league and go once more on their 
“ own hook,” in single families. 
They are a bold, almost unapproachable 
bird, especially in flat countries, although 
on the moors they arc not so hard to reach, 
'fliose hillocks, hummocks, mounds and 
knolls, so very frequent, enable the sports¬ 
men to come at. them often unobserved, so 
that lie is pretty sure of some good shots 
during every day in the season. They are 
fond of thick, short cover, and like these 
gentle elevations on the moors, where they 
are near 
boldly show himself to you, angry and red 
as a turkey cock. I dare say he knows he is 
tough eating and not worth a shot, or why 
does he expose himself so freely ? Any way, 
he does it, and if his brood are squatting in 
an eastern direction, he will go off west- 
wardly, lifting up his fiery head every now 
and then from among the grass and heather, 
just to see, if you have taken his bait; and if 
you follow him, he. will lead you as long a 
chase as he thinks necessary to give his 
chicks time to get out of the way. If you 
are not to be bamboozled in this way, lie 
will suddenly disappear, and presently yell 
Shall sec him rising in the east, and llying off 
swiftly away from you; or he will lie close 
with Ids young brood, and evade your hunt¬ 
ing if he can,—usually a hard matter. 
The grouse is hard to kill in packs, and 
“The Dead Shot," who is a capital teacher, 
recommends that the marker or beater 
should get. to windward of them, and, as 
they always lly down the wind, drive them 
up to the sportsman, who is to hide himself 
in the. probable line of their flight, and when 
they come up shoot from two to three feet 
ahead of them, and so perchance bring 
them down. But the chances are against 
the sportsman in this case. They are terribly 
strong on the wing, and soon get to know 
The best time to hunt grouse is from 9 
A. M. to noon ; and from about 1 o’clock 
until 4 in the afternoon. They are like most 
townsmen, and hate to be disturbed early In 
the morning. If you will only let them 
alone to get their breakfast in peace, and 
enjoy a cozy family chat afterwards, you arc 
pretty certain of good sport, as they are not 
nearly so wild then as earlier in the day. 
Neither is it policy to hunt the low grounds 
first of ail, if you will insist upon early shoot¬ 
ing ; for on being disturbed they always lly 
to these grounds and are ns wild ns March 
hares. The hills should be carefully hunted 
first, ami the lowlands left until later on 
towards afternoon when the birds arc feed¬ 
ing. Where, they get to in the, middle of the 
day between IS and I o’clock, it would puz¬ 
zle a Philadelphia lawyer to discover. 1 
have hunted for them everywhere in likely 
and unlikely places and never started a bird. 
They must have some underground fairy 
palaces, in delicious gardens where man nor 
dog can enter—in which they take their multi 
at that great solemn hour—when the pulse 
of the world seems to stand still, and silence 
speaks to Goo in vast syllables, which all feel 
and none hear or understand. Any way 
there is no catching these birds at that hour. 
If they lie well in the afternoon the sports¬ 
man may often make ms nest shots then, anil 
bang away until after sundown. For my 
part I can tire myself and dogs any day in 
six hours’ hard work, and am content to 
take the good or ill-luck of the day within 
those hours. 
No sportsman will go on to the moors 
after a heavy rain, as the birds arc wilder 
than the wind Euroclydon, or any other 
Bureau blower. The best time to shoot, at a 
grouse, if he rises high in the air after being 
flushed, is at the moment, when he Is about 
to describe his angle, before taking a new 
line. He must be struck when lie has 
reached his extremes! speed, just as ho is 
about to dart off in another direction. 
There, is a good deal of shrewd sense in 
the grouse; and it is certain that they reason, 
in a small way. But they are very narrow- 
witted, poor things; and if defeated in an old 
dodge, have not the wit to invent, a new one. 
We have seen how the curlew “shammed 
Abraham, " when Av< ;/net him this morning 
on the moors, and xefy well he did it, too, 
so that I guess he' was an old hand. The 
cock grouse lias been instructed also in the 
same school, but he did not continue his les¬ 
son long enough to be a proficient. You 
come, for example, upon His brood, when lie 
has it in charge, and gun or no gun, he will 
ly always to be found. But they are 
very wary, have good eyes and quick cars. 
If you descend upon them from an eminence 
they arc sure to spy you, and hide, or tly off 
to a distance. Some sportsmen advise you, 
if you arc lucky enough 
to flush a covey, to r-. - 'm,-— == 
mark them down* and 
until you have killed 
vise you to mark them = _ ~ - 
and pass on. I think 
the former advice the ■ - i 
best. Markers are as Z—— I 
necessary in grouse as ~ — 1 
in woodcock shooting, ~T 
though not so cunning ~ 
a bird as the other, is m 
up to “ dodges,” which -_~~ 
he no doubt acquires -z~ — -I P 
by the hitter experi¬ 
ence of the field. If =k 
you put him up, and 
lie gets away, you are 
sure to see him “ act a 
droll,” to try and cheat ~ — 
you as to the locality 
of ids pitching point. 
There he goes, the fine 
fellow, in a straight 
line as far almost as 
your eye can follow . 
him; and now being 
resolved to settle at ~ 
point A, directly oppo- 
site to the point from ^-1 
, 1 '-'"I Kim ' 
right angles once or j 
twice, and so confuse 
your eyesight that, tin- 
will pitch at A, as he 
intended, before you ^ 
are aware of it. In 
cases of this kind, the |kT’ ~ ~ 
... , 
WvZ the ground. 
strong on the wing, 
may he seen perched in great numbers upon 
fences—flying away, however, to the feeding 
ground as soon as the sun rises. Sometimes 
I have seen them 
- —~ * rr 1 perched on the tree 
=-=■ ^Z tops, or walking like a 
footed acrobat 
upon the lower branch¬ 
es. They even roost, 
there sometimes, hilt 
this is rare; the prairie 
being their common 
resting-place. 
I have not spoken of 
snipe shooting in this 
discursive article, but I 
may here say that the 
English snipe called 
Wilson’s (OaUinoffo 
Wilsonii) is common 
all over this continent, 
and lias the same 
haunts and habits as 
the “ Simon-pure ” on 
the other side. They 
pass the winter in the 
Southern States and 
leave us in September 
and October, returning 
again in March anil 
April, and extending 
their migrations north¬ 
ward far beyond the 
United States, where 
they rarely tarry to 
breed. In Nova Scotia 
they begin to lay in 
June, in swampy 
grounds. The nest is 
a mere hole in the 
moss, and here they 
deposit t heir four eggs, 
the small cuds down¬ 
ward. They are of an 
olive color, thickly 
spotted with light and 
dark brown. 
Few birds afford 
finer sport than the 
snipe. There are many 
varieties of them in 
this country, and I 
hope before long to 
write an article on 
Snipe Shooting for t his 
journal—this mirror of 
country life, country 
'abor and field spurts. 
