272 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
“ Aye! indeed, but let us on. My cigar is finished. Hush! 
hush ! What are those V* 
“ Wood-duck, by Jupiter! eight of them; and they have drop¬ 
ped in the bed of the brook, just under the big white oak tree ; 
they are after the acorns. Keep the dogs close, good Rusticus ; 
now, Agilis, cram down an Ely’s cartridge in each barrel and 
let us steal down upon them. Try to get a sitting shot on the 
water first, and then give them the second barrel as they rise.” 
“ Excellent! excellent, Peritus. I see your words are about 
to be made good. I have bagged a Mallard already, and you 
two green-winged Teal—” 
“And a Pin-tail,” answered Peritus, “besides Grouse, Quail, 
Hare and Woodcock. And now we will have four or five 
Wood-duck; and there are the Snipe bogs. Off with you, but 
keep your head down and crawl low; the Wood-duck is not, 
however, a wild Duck.” 
Within ten minutes four barrels sent forth their contents, and 
five Ducks came to bag, and thence the friends went forward 
to the Snipe ground, where some eighteen or twenty long bills 
were picked up, fat, large and lazy ; and thence again into the 
wide deep swampy woodlands, where the yelping of the Span¬ 
iels, the flip-flap of the rising Woodcock, the whirr of the startled 
Quail, and the louder hurtling of the Ruffed Grouse, succeeded 
rapidly by the loud ringing gunshots, gave note of glorious 
sport until sundown, when the increasing darkness put a stop 
to the joyous labors of the unwearied sportsmen. The tale of 
that day’s bag, and it was a real day, and a real bag, was as 
follows: 
Seven Ruffed Grouse, sixty-two Quail, forty Cock, nine 
teen Snipe, nine Hares, five Wood-duck, two green-winged 
Teal, a Mallard, and a Pin-tail, brought to bag by two guns, 
in about eight hours’ shooting—one hundred and sixty-six head 
of game, of nine different varieties. 
That is the best day’s sport I ever saw; I fear I never shall 
see such another, certainly I shall not in the same region. 
Nothing in the way of sport can, I think, be better, and such 
