our way fast. A moment later half a dozen smaller bullets banged away as the birds followed their parents into the thick pine trees. We crossed a flat depression on the ridge and climbed again to a rounded hill tops. Below us lay a new valley. I sat down to examine it with my glasses while Simon down there wandered slowly off the right and looked across at the opposite hills. I was intently studying the edge of a marsh when I heard the muffled beat of wings. I jerked the glasses from my eyes just as a large rock bird turned with a pair of splendid branching aquilors bounded into view not thirty feet away. The he made a picture which with the detail of a photograph will forever remain stamped upon my memory as he hesitated for an instant with head thrown up, nostrils distended, and then dashed along the hillside. That instant of hesitation cost him his life for it gave me just time to get off the right across my lap catch a glimpse of the yellow red belly from the rear right and fire at the crash of