The Game-Birds of the Coasts and Lakes of the Northern States of America / A full account of the sporting along our sea-shores and inland waters, with a comparison of the merits of breech-loaders and muzzle-loaders

The Celebrated Sporting Works OF ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT. —— I. The Game Fish of the North II. Superior Fishing. III. The Game Birds of the North. ⁂ All published uniform with this volume, handsomely bound in cloth, price $2.00. Sent free by mail on receipt of price , BY Carleton, Publisher, New York.

A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE SPORTING ALONG OUR SEASHORES AND INLAND WATERS, WITH A COMPARISON OF THE MERITS OF BREECH-LOADERS AND MUZZLE-LOADERS. By ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT, AUTHOR OF “THE GAME-FISH OF NORTH AMERICA,” “SUPERIOR FISHING,” “COUNTRY LIFE,” ETC., ETC. NEW YORK: Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway. M DCCC LXVI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by GEO. W. CARLETON, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. The New York Printing Company, 81, 83, and 85 Centre Street , New York.


By the ancient law of 1 and 2 William IV., chap. 32, under the designation of game, were included “hares, pheasants, partridges, grouse, heath or moor game, black game, and bustards.”
Hunting and hawking date back to the earliest days of knight-errantry, when parties of cavaliers and ladies fair, mounted on their mettlesome steeds caparisoned with all the skill of the cunning artificers of those days, pursued certain birds of the air with the falcon, and followed the royal stag through the well preserved and extensive forests with packs of hounds. The term game, therefore, had an early significance and positive application, but was confined to the creatures pursued in one or the other of these two modes.
The gun was first used for the shooting of feathered game in the early part of the eighteenth century; it soon became the favorite implement of the sportsman, and was brought into use, not only against the birds, but the beasts, of game. The huntsman no longer depends upon his brave dog and cloth-yard shaft, but upon his own powers of endurance and of marksmanship. Instead of watching the savage falcon strike his prey far up in the heavens, he follows his high-bred setters, till their wonderful natural instinct betrays to him the presence of the game.