2 4 o AMONG THE WILD FOWL 



yourself together at the moment when you should 

 be " all there." Now the wild-fowler, above all men, 

 must be devoted in his pursuit to the entire oblivion 

 of adventitious circumstances. It needs no ordinary 

 concentration of energy to watch and wait, with each 

 faculty on the stretch, when the extremities are im- 

 mersed in an icy puddle ; when the frost is knitting 

 your moustache to your beard, and congealing the 

 tear-drops that gather beneath your eyelashes ; or 

 when the wind is whistling through that duffel 

 shooting-coat of yours and chilling the very marrow 

 in your aching bones. When the chance comes to 

 ordinary men under such highly trying conditions, 

 it is long odds that they fail to make the best of it. 

 And we know few things more trying in this world 

 of disappointment than missing the purpose of your 

 privations and your patience, when Providence has 

 brought it for a second or so within your grasp. 



There is even more science in stalking ducks than 

 deer. From the nature of the broken ground in a 

 forest, you have a fair chance of making your 

 approach under cover ; but the ducks are almost 

 sure to have settled on a sheet of water in the flat. 

 You may walk up almost within arm's-length of out- 

 lying birds in the hags of a peat-moss ; but when the 

 ducks are gathered into flocks, no creatures are more 

 suspicious or more watchful. They have an extra- 

 ordinarily keen sense of sight, and they never cease 

 to be on the alert. They are a much less conspicuous 

 object to the sportsman than the sportsman is to 



