258 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
you have not indicated the lest mode of preparing him for the 
table; of which more will be said presently. I will state the 
reasons for my dissent from your views ; and you must bear with 
me if I am tedious. 
You say, vol. 1, p. 249, u About the first of August the young 
are about equal in size to the Quail,” &c. 
I speak for the West only in what follows. There may be a 
difference in the habits of the birds here and in the Atlantic 
States; I am inclined to think there is. I am of opinion that 
the months of April and May are warmer, and September and 
October are colder in Missouri and Illinois than in Maryland. 
My professional engagements—I am a lawyer—prevent my giving 
to the habits of the Grouse the study to which my tastes incline 
me. I cannot say, with accuracy, at what time their nests are 
finished, or their broods hatched. But the young birds are much 
larger than Quail on the first of July; and in this condition, 
scarcely able to flutter out of the grass, they are, to the disgrace 
of all participants in or encouragers of the atrocity, killed in 
great numbers, sold dearly, and eaten greedily. At this time the 
flesh is white, tender, and tasteless. 
I do not desire you to hold your hand from smiting “ Tom 
Trigor,” and all who are like unto him, according to their de¬ 
serts. But if he speaks of the Grouse in the States of Illinois 
and Missouri, he is as far wrong in his attempts to give their natu¬ 
ral history as he is wanting in every feeling of the sportsman, in 
the article which you quote from him. My own experience is op¬ 
posed to everything he says on the subject of Grouse shooting, 
as it exists in this neighborhood. I have shot Grouse in the 
first week of August,—this was before I knew better, and I will 
never do it again,—in the middle of that month, at the close of 
it, in all of September, in October, and November. I condemn, as 
decidedly as any one, the shooting of any bird of game before it 
is strong on the wing. I consider the first of August too early for 
Grouse shooting, yet I can assure you there is good sport by the 
middle of that month. The birds are of full size, full fledged, 
