156 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
which it has fallen ; and I have found it a good plan, on step¬ 
ping up after loading to look for your game, to drop your hat, 
or handkerchief, on that which you conceive to be the exact 
spot ; otherwise, while looking round among the grass, it is not 
uncommon to lose the direction altogether. In covert shooting, 
in marking a bird, whether shot at or not, which flies behind a 
orake, impervious to the sight, cast your eye quickly forward to 
the next opening, a little above the line of the bird’s flight, if he 
is rising, or below, if dropping on the wing, to make sure that 
he does not pass it. If a killed bird is hidden from you by the 
smoke of your own fire, and you perceive by the stream of fea¬ 
thers that he is dead, allow a little for the speed and direction 
of his flight, which, if he was going fast when struck, will often 
throw him many feet forward of the spot where the shot smote 
him. The shot itself, if close by and hard hit, will at times pitch 
him a yard or two out of his course. 
A Snipe will sometimes, but not generally, carry away a good 
many shot; but when he does so, if marked down, he almost in¬ 
variably rises again. Neither he nor his congener, the Wood¬ 
cock, is in the habit—so common with the Quail, and sometimes 
with the Ruffed Grouse—of flying away with his death-wound 
and dying before he falls. A Quail or Grouse, shot through the 
heart, or through the brain, will constantly tower, as it is termed, 
directly up into the mid-air, with a perpendicular flight, and 
quick beating of the wings, which are kept up till he vital spark 
leaves the bird literally in the air, when it turns over on its back, 
and falls like a stone. In windy weather many Quail are lost 
thus, drifting out of reach ; but I never saw this occur with a 
Woodcock, and never but once with a Snipe, which then only 
flirted up a few feet, with an expiring effort. 
When, therefore, a Snipe goes away hard hit, mark him care¬ 
fully, and approach the spot stealthily,—it is all a toss-up whe¬ 
ther he lies like a stone, or whirls up at sixty paces, when he 
hears you coming. But however hard he may lie, never relax 
your watchfulness, or put your gun under your arm, or over 
your shoulder, till he is bagged. I have seen a crippled bird 
