[Illustration: THE SPANISH POINTER From the engraving by Woollett, after the painting by Stubbs, 1768] These woodcock, for instance, do they not at once bring to mind the beauties of their native haunts?--the devious alder tangle and jungle of wild grape where the dragon-fly flits above the murmurous stream, and the cardinal-flower reflects itself within the glassy pool. This ruffed grouse, in turn, how he recalls the pageant of the upland! Once more you scent the breath of the wildwood and drink the exhilarating draught of October. Again are you thrilled by the roar of strong pinions as the quarry rises in his strength, to fall beneath the leaden charge and fold his wings in everlasting sleep. Or, with the advent upon the board of that much-in-little, the snipe, the lonely marsh with its whispering flags and shifting cloud-shadow extends in imagination before you--where the killdeer calls, and the bittern booms, and the bird of mottled breast twists away with raucous cry to be lost in the grey horizon's marge. Thus game to the sportsman embodies an æsthetic attribute unknown to the majority, the very associations of sport in themselves conferring the keenest appreciation of the true instincts of gastronomy. The range and the breech-loader are closely allied, and the field and the table become merged in ties of mutual affinity. Nor may we overlook the great worth of game in the sick-room, and as a ministering agent for the invalid and convalescent. It possesses, in addition, a virtue equalled by scarcely any other form of food, in calling forth the bouquet and flavour of wine--whether it be a white wine with the denizens of fresh and salt water that figure as game-fish, or a grand growth of Bordeaux or Burgundy that is appropriately served with the furred and feathered tenants of Sylva's court. Then if one has killed it himself, or a friend whose skill has checked its flight has been the means of contributing its graces, its quintessence becomes all the more adorable.