■228 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 



"With these preliminaries let us prepare for the 

 sport. 



Provide yourself with a short double-barrelled fowl- 

 ing-piece of small bore ; let your ammunition be first-rate, 

 and have something the size of a small thimble where- 

 with to measure out your load of mustard shot. Let 

 your powder be in a small flask, but keep your shot loose 

 with your measure, in the right side pocket of your 

 shooting jacket — and, astonished sportsman ! leave thy 

 noble brace of dogs shut up in their kennels ; for we 

 would hunt woodcock, incredible as it may seem, with- 

 out them. 



In the place of the dogs we will put a stout negro, 

 who understands his business, burdened with what re- 

 sembles an old-fashioned warming-pan, but the bottom, 

 instead of the top, pierced with holes ; in this pan are 

 small splinters of pine knot, and we denominate this, the 

 Torch. Then put on the broad-brimmed palmetto hat, 

 so that it will shade your eyes, and keep them from 

 alarming the birds. Now, follow me down into any of 

 the old fields that lie between the river and the swamp, 

 while the ladies can stand upon spacious galleries that 

 surround the house, and tell by the quick report of 

 guns our success ; the streaming light from " the torch," 

 will, to them, from the distance, look like an ignis fatuus 

 dancing the cachuca in the old field. 



It is in the middle of January, the night is a favor- 

 able one, the weather rather warm, the thermometer says 



