298 LEWIS'^ AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



laudable ambition — and where is the tyro who will not? — we trust 

 that he may prove more successful than we did at our debut upon 

 swan-shooting; having, much to our mortification, fired both bar- 

 rels of a heavy duck-gun from behind an ambush into a noble flock 

 of sixteen swans quietly feeding on the water within sixty yards 

 of us, without even as much as rumpling a single feather of their 

 plumage. But then there was a reason why, as all sportsmen have 

 good excuses for their bad shooting ; at all events, they strive very 

 hard to concoct plausible ones, by which to gull their companions. 

 But in this case, unfortunately for our credit as a marksman, the 

 gun was neither strange, bad, nor overloaded ; neither did it snap, 

 hang fire, overshoot nor undershoot its mark; but the plain and 

 simple fact is — shall we have recourse to so hackneyed a plea ? — to 

 cut the matter short and solve the mystery, we had no number B B 

 shot in the barrels, one of our companions having drawn the charge 

 the night before, by way of aff'ording himself some amusement at 

 our expense on the following day. 



Jokers, however, often get hurt with the recoil of their own 

 weapons ; and so it was in this case. As we were entirely alone, 

 and separated from the projector of this trick when we fired at the 

 swans, we suspected something wrong, and did not relate the cir- 

 cumstance till after he had confessed drawing the load and ex- 

 pressed a desire to know the result of our first two shots ; and then, 

 greatly to his chagrin, he learned that we might have had added 

 to our lot of ducks several noble cygnets, if he had restrained 

 his silly propensity to make us a laughing-stock for the company. 

 Such an opportunity to distinguish ourself in the field of wild-fowl 

 shooting we never again expect to meet with, as we are satisfied 

 that we should have killed, on this occasion, not less than six 

 swans, and perhaps more; for they were all huddled together in 

 such a manner, when we drew on them, that hardly one could have 

 escaped from the effects of our fire.* 



*" We do not mean to assert that we might have bagged the yrhole sixteen by one 

 " coup de fusil," or even with two ; but we do say, most positively, that scarcely one 

 could have gotten off without carrying a few pellets of shot with him. 



