THE JERSEY COAST. 227 



lias noticed liow many fell to tlio first. Dropping 

 l);u'k to liis position of roncoalnicnt, lie i-oconimcnccs 

 Avliistling, and tlie poor tilings, forgetting their fright 

 and anxious to know why liieir friends alighted amid 

 a roar like thunder, return to the fatal spot, and 

 again give the fortunate sportsman a chance for his 

 reloaded gun. 



It was for such glorious sport as this, with fair 

 promise of success — for the flight was on, as the say- 

 ing is, when the snipe arc moving— that I prepared 

 myself the next morning. Rising at earliest day- 

 break, a friend, the gunner, and myself sallied out to 

 the bhnd, and having set out our stools, possessed 

 our souls in patience for what might follow. A blind 

 is another ingenious invention of the devil — as per- 

 sonified by a bayman, in pursuit of wild fowl — and 

 is constructed by planting bushes thickly in a circle 

 )-ound a bench. Seated upon this bench and con- 

 cealed from the suspicious eyes of the snipe by the 

 dense foliage of the bayberry bushes, the sportsman, 

 in comparative comfort, awaits his prey. In less 

 civilized localities he hides himself among the long 

 sedge grass, or scoops out a hole in the sand and 

 lies at length upon a waterproof blanket. 



The wind had hauled, in nautical language, to the 

 south'ard and west'ard, and the sun's rays driving 

 aside the hazy clouds, illuminated tlie eastern sky 

 w^ith fiery glory. The land and water, dim with the 

 heavy night fog, stretched out in broad, undefined 

 outline, and the heavens seemed close down upon 

 the earth. Through the hazy atmosplKTJ and slug- 



