Indian that in the end, you may see 
again that volleying form collapse and 
feel once more the elation that thrills 
one to the very core. 
HILE, in general, shooting ruffed 
grouse is to be rated as fast and 
quick work, it in reality ranges from 
the snappiest of snap shooting on the 
one hand if birds are rising wild, as 
is generally the case these days, 
through to the shots where the quarry 
at times lies close in open and easy 
cover where one may take his time, 
dwelling on the trigger from necessity 
till the bird makes its right 
distance from the gun. 
It of course all depends 
where and how you catch your 
bird. Perhaps the great se- 
cret in getting close to grouse 
is to possess a thorough knowl- 
edge of your covers, how to 
enter them at the most stra- 
tegic point and the way the 
birds usually work and fly in 
any particular covert. 
NE is thus able by quiet 
skirmishing often as not 
to round up a bird, pinning 
him in a tight place where he 
must of necessity flush in such 
a manner as to reveal himself 
near enough and long enough 
to afford opportunity to the 
gun, and many old hands are 
often very adept at thus cor- 
nering a bird. But, so many 
tricks does this feathered 
trickster pack up his figura- 
tive sleeve that one can never 
be sure of him till he be down 
and in pocket—and sometimes 
not then. The writer recall- 
ing most vividly three in- 
stances of presumably dead 
grouse deposited in the rear 
compartment of a Shooting 
coat “coming back” and, 
scrambling through the side 
opening over their companions 
to decamp for parts unknown. 
One of them, however, chose 
an inopportune moment, being 
jarred into action by a shot 
at another bird and tore out . 
and away in a fairly open space caus- 
ing us to whir] and execute what at 
the moment we thought was a fore and 
aft double. 
HILE some of the fireside stu- 
dents of bird lore will maintain 
the partridge does not intentionally 
seek to put any natural barrier be- 
tween himself and the gun, the sea- 
soned partridge hunter knows that it 
occurs too often to be merely acciden- 
tal or leave any room for doubt, 
520 
Ho” often in gunning birds in small 
birch cover holding a sprinkling 
of bull pines have they whisked behind 
the first one handy seeming to sense 
instantly the insecurity of the open 
birches. Apropos of this, I once ap- 
proached a pointing dog to observe a 
noble specimen of cock grouse crouched 
close to the butt of a great forest oak 
some fifteen feet from the dog’s nose. 
Secure in the belief that it could by no 
possibility flush without affording a 
perfect chance, I took time to study 
the bird casually before stepping in to 
start it. It really seemed too good to 

Verily, still hunting hath its rewards! 
be true—and it was. For upon advanc- 
ing, instead of that surging upward 
rush there was merely a blurred flash 
upon the ground and quicker than eye 
might follow the bird had scuttled 
around the bole and taken off, with 
three feet of solid oak behind it and 
the gun. 
A ND though moving swiftly, the bird 
was the faster, the flirt of a velvet- 
banded tail curving behind a knoll a 
hundred yards away through the wood 
* 
, 
being my next and only glimpse. The 
fact of course is, that grouse will seek 
instinctively to keep as much natural 
shelter between them and the gun ag 
they may be able to do under the cir- 
cumstances. 
IME can never erase from the tab- 
let of memory the witchery of aw 
tumn days with the grouse, spent in 
company with a professional shot, i. e,, 
a market shooter, with whom the 
writer was thrown much in contact in 
early years. He specialized upon 
ruffed grouse and was capable, all 
things considered, of produc- 
ing more mortality among the 
birds with a given amount of 
ammunition as any one with 
whom I ever scattered shells 
in a grouse covert. From him] 
learned the value of a 26-inch 
barrel, the consistent use for 
grouse of No. 8 chilled shot 
the season through from the 
first day to the last, and the 
finer points of the still hunt- 
ing end of the game for which, 
like many another, I have ever 
since had a weakness. 
O watch him at work was 
to know wing shooting is 
an art, and a pretty art, and 
to realize that practice, or in 
other words experience, alone 
endows a man with the requi- 
site skill to drop his birds with 
a pleasing regularity. 
Finished technique in wing 
shooting is not inborn instinet 
or intuition. It is really ae 
quired skill and dexterity 
gained through excessive repe- 
tition exactly in ratio to the 
practice gained by a worker 
in any medium, calling or 
trade. However, thorough 
workman as my companion 
was, he was not infrequently 
overwhelmed with what he 
considered professional dis. 
grace at the things a partridge 
would do to him on occasion 
and get away with, to furnish 
abundant evidence of the sa 
gacity of grouse in general. 
It is doubtful if any shot at a typi 
cal grouse may be regarded as eas} 
in the accepted sense, but some art 
more so than others. | 
y| 
Paeaets the best place to catel 
them for the most comfortable 
shooting is in old and long-abandonec 
pasture land, grown up to low second: 
growth birch, maple and alder with 
sprinkling of young pines, juniper anc 
barberry bush through which babbl 
(Continued on page 568) 







