United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Would you believe it, I've blown fifteen lumps of snow to atoms, in the belief that they were ptarmigan! and then he rushed off again." "No doubt," said Mr. Wilson, smiling, "the lad is very green, but he's a good fellow for all that." "I'll answer for that," said the accountant; "I found him over at the men's houses this morning doing your work for you, doctor."
A man will thus watch for hours together, with a temperature of 30 degrees below zero. We were able to kill a good many with our guns at a distance as they lay on the ice, when no one could have approached near them. Our sporting, on the whole, was tolerably successful, for we killed a quantity of ptarmigan, grouse, and other birds, besides several white hares.
For a long while the slush-lamp shadows played tragedies upon the wall. 'But Unga! cried Prince, the vision still strong upon him. 'Unga? She would not eat of the ptarmigan. She lay with her arms about his neck, her face deep in his yellow hair. I drew the fire close, that she might not feel the frost, but she crept to the other side.
Prince Albert making a detour after ptarmigan, leaving the Queen in the safe keeping of her devoted guides, to whom she refers so kindly as "taking the greatest care of her."
I felt relieved, for as we were getting closer and closer with every shot, it seemed possible that if the ptarmigan sat there long enough we might eventually have hit him. The mystery was why we shot so poorly. But this was explained by R.C., who discovered we had been shooting the wrong shells. It was a long hard ride down the rough winding trail.
On coming to the place where it was probable that they might fall in with ptarmigan, Hamilton became rather excited, and apt to imagine that little lumps of snow which hung upon the bushes here and there were birds. "There now," he cried, in an energetic and slightly positive tone, as another of these masses of snow suddenly met his eager eye "that's one, I'm quite sure."
Ptarmigan are almost pure white, so that it requires a practised eye to detect them, even at a distance of a few yards; and it would be almost impossible to hunt them without dogs, but for the tell-tale snow, in which their tracks are distinctly marked, enabling the sportsman to follow them up with unerring certainty.
Mr. Fisher found very good sport in our new station, having returned in the evening, after a few hours' excursion, with nine hares; the birds had, of late, almost entirely deserted us, a flock or two of ptarmigan and snow-buntings, a few glaucous gulls, a raven, and an owl, being all that had been met with for several days.
Born and reared at Nome on the barren tundra of Alaska, Marian had hunted rabbits, ptarmigan and even caribou and white wolves with her father in her early teens. She was as steady and sure a shot as most boys of her age. "Boat rocks so," she grumbled. "More waves out there, too. Watch the thing bob!" "It's gone under!" "No, there it is!" "Try it now."
No wonder I enjoyed their society. Nor did the men in the lower camp suffer any privation. Wisting showed himself to be possessed of eminent talents as cook for the day. His special dish was penguins and skua gulls in cream sauce. It was served under the name of ptarmigan, of which it really reminded one.
Word Of The Day