CURRITUCK MARSHES. 129 



stand, "I have seen a good many misses when a 

 man was most sure of hitting ; I hardly expected 

 that you would kill them both so neatly. " 



The sport kept up. It is useless to describe each 

 individual shot that we made. There is endless 

 variety in every one that is fired, for no two birds 

 come to the decoys precisely alike. There are never 

 the same conditions of wind, sun, position, readiness, 

 and what not, so that each is more or less of a sur- 

 prise. These the sportsman enjoys at the time, 

 they constitute the great charm of shooting; but 

 they would tire in the repetition in the cold blood 

 of white paper and black ink. It is enough that we 

 had a magnificent day's sport; "magnificent" is 

 not hyperbolical; we had sport that will be a memory 

 through life, and until the age-weakened arms can 

 no longer wield the faithful fowling piece, nor the 

 time-dimmed eyes note the birds approach. Our 

 store of game lay in a pile uncounted ; we knew there 

 was a goodly number, and when at last the tired sun 

 had performed his allotted task and gone to bed, we 

 were not surprised to add up nearly a hundred of 

 what is one of the finest of all the ducks, the hand- 

 some little widgeon. Few of our gunners, even the 

 oldest of them, know that there was a time when 

 the widgeon was valued more highly than the canvas- 

 back, when in fact in firing a sitting shot the market 

 gunner would "shew" the latter out of the way, in 

 order that he might have a better chance at the for- 

 mer. Had we been in exactly the right spot, there 

 is no doubt that I would then have reached the bag 



