(son) 
CHAPTER] Vil: 
FLIGHTING. 
’ 
PEOPLE more often go “flighting” than “ flight-shooting,” and this is 
especially true of the stranger who sets forth to bag the vespertinal Duck upon 
the saltings. And yet, though birds do so often follow a regular line of flight, 
I would myself far sooner go after them unattended by the local professional, 
who already knows that line. Half the fun, I think, lies in endeavouring to 
discover it for yourself. 
To pit one’s own prescience against that of several friends, and then each 
take up a position suggested by the lie of the land alone, is to me, even if I 
get no shots, a far more pleasurable way of doing things than being degraded 
to the level of a shooting machine, posted by a local behind a bush or bank, 
and told to keep an eye on one particular quarter whence “the Duck are 
certain to come.” And what remarks some of these men do make to 
encourage you, especially the better dressed and more up-to-date members of 
the fraternity! I was standing once waiting for Duck on a certain marsh in 
Sussex, and up sneaked one of these worthies with an insinuating ‘ good 
evening, sir.”’ Inasmuch as he had a dog with him and I hadn’t, I decided to 
put up with him, though, being a bad shot, I much prefer to miss my birds in 
solitude. 
The sun began to sink below the horizon, and there came echoing over the 
stillness of the marsh the well-known note of the Ringed Plover. ‘‘ Ah!” said 
my mentor, with enthusiasm, “I likes to hear the note of the Curlew; I 
always thinks it a good sign; it brings the Duck.” 
I profited to this extent by the remark, that after it I paid more attention 
to the side from which he didn’t expect them than to that from which he did, 
and my foresight was justified by the event. Not, I would hasten to add, that 
I regard this individual as in any way typical of the average fowler, at all 
events on the East Coast. They do know the notes of the birds and the 
direction from which they may be expected to come, and if I was bent on 
killing, and nothing else, I should most certainly take one with me if flighting 
