UPLAND SHOOTING. 
47 
wonderful accuracy, rapidity and deliberate promptitude of aim 
and execution, backed as these are by the great improvements 
in the art of gunnery, and by the vast superiority of the percus¬ 
sion to the flint lock, are such as would make our ancestors, of 
a century since, despair amid their admiration—such as consti¬ 
tute the first-rate game shot on the wing, decidedly the greatest 
marksman and artist with the gun, be the other what he may. 
For, without disparaging the beautiful practice of the rifle or 
pistol, it may be affirmed safely that it is merely mechanical, and 
attainable by every one possessed of a steady hand and a true 
eye ; while I know not what of calculation, of intuition, almost 
of inspiration, is not needed to constitute a crack shot. As my 
poor friend, Cypress, Jun., said, in one of his inimitably witty 
false quotations, purporting to be from Pliny’s chapter on Black 
Ducks, u Legere quidern et scribere est pcedagogi , sed optime col - 
lineare est Dei ,” which he rendered somewhat thus, u A credita¬ 
ble scholar can be made by the schoolmaster, but a crack shot 
is the work of God,” the Latinity being equal to the truth of 
the apopthegm. 
Now, without pretending that I can give every person a re¬ 
ceipt whereby he can become a u crack shot,” which no one, I 
believe, can be, unless he is born to that good eminence, or even 
presuming that I can make him a good sportsman, I shall pro¬ 
ceed to set down such facts with regard to the habits and haunts, 
the seasons and the instincts of game, as I can derive from the best 
sources, with such directions for the pursuit and killing of them 
as many years experience has led me to consider the most likely 
to attain success. 
And first of all, we will consider what animals come under the 
head of upland game, and thence proceed to their generic distinc¬ 
tions and habits, as recorded by our greatest naturalists, after 
which we shall be led in due season to my own personal experi¬ 
ences and observations. 
Our upland game consists then, as we find it here in the 
northern and north-eastern parts of North America, of three 
species of grouse proper—one of them very rare and very rarely 
VOL. i. 6 
