174 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
alders, not above two or three yards square, I flushed a bird 
which flew out to him. He fired. I called out to enquire whe¬ 
ther he had killed, and as he answered “ yes,” I heard the bird 
flapping its wings on the ground, in the death-struggle, as I ima¬ 
gined. Knowing that he could recover the bird, in the open 
ground, I beat out the thicket thoroughly, and left it, satisfied 
that it contained no other bird, though I had some difficulty in 
getting one of my Setters away from what I supposed to be a 
field mouse. On joining my friend, he told me that the bird had 
flapped up, when he was in the act of laying his hand upon it, 
and had staggered away, seeming every moment on the point of 
falling, so that he did not care to fire at it again, until it got out 
of shot; but that he had marked it down to a yard, in a thick 
brush fence, three or four hundred yards away. On going to the 
place, the dogs took the scent readily; but, while they were 
trailing it, the bird rose, a hundred yards off, flapping and stag¬ 
gering about, as if severely hurt; and flew some three or four 
hundred yards farther from the thicket in which we first started 
it, and dropped again in a piece of thick hill-side coppice. I 
marked the bird accurately by the top of a pine tree, and off we 
set in pursuit, I more than half suspecting that the bird was un¬ 
wounded. Scarce had we entered the covert, when up whizzed 
the identical bird fresh and sound, from the very brake in which 
I had marked him, and away like a bullet through the tree tops. 
So thoroughly convinced was I, that, though I could have killed 
the bird with ease, I would not fire at it; but to convince my 
still doubting friend, we walked back to the little tuft in which 
we first sprung the cock ; he promising not to fire if we should 
again flush her. My dogs were not well in the alders before 
the bird rose again, and was going away at her best pace, when 
my friend’s shot stopped her, to my infinite disgust. He is a 
very quick shot, and in the excitement of the moment forgot 
everything except the game and the fury of pursuit. 
Almost at the same moment, old Chance—he was the best re¬ 
triever I ever saw in any country—picked up from the spot 
where I had supposed he was snuffing after a field-mouse 
