oe WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
velocity to be acquired is very great. After practicing 
a while, so he feels he can do it with rapidity, let his 
wife try it, and her first attempt will convince him how 
exceedingly slow he is. As the huntersees them flying 
over him, a variety of conflicting emotions flit through 
his mind. He believes patience is a monument of 
virtue, and 7s patient. He weakens as time passes, and 
not one comes near enough to kill; still they go over 
him, chattering and whistling, or turn their heads 
slightly and look down on him, as he feels, in derision. 
Getting desperate he begins shooting at them ; shot 
after shot is fired, but without effect. He gets mad, 
and wishes he had a gun that would kill a mile—no dif- 
ference what it weighed. But his desperation and 
disgust nerve him to greater deeds of valor, and by 
shooting from 16 to 20 feet ahead of a flock, he scratches 
one down, wing tipped. No sooner does the bird start 
to leave the flock, than the hunter starts for it like a 
race-horse. When he gets where the bird fell, he finds 
feathers but no bird. About this time the air becomes 
blue, and a heavy sulphuric vapor permeates the sur- 
roundings. He is out of breath from running. Accident- 
ally looking back, he sees alarge flock of pin-tails swoop 
right over his blind, not fifty feet high, the best op- 
portunity of the day. He feels he could have killed 
half a dozen had he been there. Such luck! How he 
wishes he had not chased this crawling cripple. He 
sees the grass move slightly, pounces down upon it, 
and drags out the lost bird; clutches it around the 
neck, gives it a preliminary squeeze, whije the poor 
bird makes a choking quack, then gazes at him in as- 
tonishment and affright. The hunter feels the impos- 
sibility of wreaking all his pent up revenge on this lone 
