156 GAME-BIRDS A 7^ HOME. 



dried pea rattling below the air-vent, but making 

 a very good imitation of the plover's call. 



Sometimes a flock three or four hundred yards 

 away would swerve and come for the decoys 

 almost at the first sound of the whistle, answering 

 it with their tender notes, often so many at once 

 they seemed the tremolo of some distant organ. 

 When the birds massed in air and set their wings 

 to slide down to the decoys, then was the critical 

 time with a young shot. Sometimes I could not 

 wait, but fired prematurely only to see the flock 

 sheer and rise. Sometimes in my excitement 

 I could not get what seemed good enough aim 

 until they were too far past. And sometimes 

 my finger would balk on the trigger and refuse to 

 pull when I had good aim. My nerves were not 

 helped by the fact that half a dozen farmer's 

 brats were lying around the same field with as 

 many relics of the Revolution, and liable to spoil 

 a good shot for me at any moment by shooting 

 clear across the field. The village parson, too, 

 was out with his old musket that had not been 

 fired since he shot his annual rabbit in the rail- 

 heap back of the house the winter before, and, 

 as every gun was then supposed to ''kill at a 



