DUCK-SHOOTING. 359 



burrows, are caught by snares placed before the hole, into 

 which the birds are traced 

 by the marks of their feet 

 on the sand. In this 

 country, our markets are 

 supplied either by those 

 who are in the habit of 

 shooting them, as a liveli- 

 hood during the winter 

 season, or from decoys, in 

 which by far the greater The sheldrake, 



number are taken. In shooting, the great difficulty is to get 

 within gunshot, the Duck not only being very watchful and 

 timid, but possessed of so fine a sense of smelling, that but for 

 the precaution of approaching them to leeward, or of holding 

 a piece of smoking turf in the hand, it is no easy matter to get 

 within reasonable distance. The guns, also, which are em- 

 ployed for this purpose, are much longer than those in common 

 use, and will kill at a much greater distance. A Duck- 

 shooter's life is often exposed to great hazard ; the sport, if so 

 it may be called, being carried on usually in winter, late in 

 the evening, or early in the morning, and most frequently in 

 wet and marshy places, or on the shores of wild and solitary 

 estuaries, opening through the lowlands near the sea. On 

 these occasions some of them prefer going without even a dog, 

 the cold being often so severe that no animal could bear it. 



Many of the favourite feeding-places consist of those vast 

 muddy flats, covered with green sea-weed, over which the 

 fowler may slip and slide in the best way he can, or (were it 

 not for his mud-pattens, flat square pieces of board tied to the 

 feet) through which he might sink up to the middle waist 



On one of these expeditions, a Duck-shooter, in Hampshire, 

 met with a perilous adventure. Mounted on his mud-pattens, 

 he was traversing one of these oozy plains, and being intent 

 only on his game, suddenly found the water rising with the 

 tide. Aware of his danger, he looked round, but his retreat 

 was already cut off ; he was already surrounded with the flow- 

 ing sea, and death stared him in the face. But in this des- 



