32 6 WINTER FOWLING 



indispensable in deer-stalking. Should there be divers, 

 you take advantage of their temporary disappearances 

 to run forward between times to a succession of am- 

 bushes like the " stations " of some pilgrimage to a 

 Catholic shrine. 



Often, no doubt, there is excitement enough in that 

 sort of sport ; but to us, considering the suffering that 

 may be involved, too much is staked on result. As in 

 deer-stalking, through no fault of your own, you may 

 be balked even of a miss at the last moment. We like 

 better another form of the sport when questing for 

 ducks. You follow the springy drains, keeping fifteen 

 yards from them, and about forty in advance of an 

 attendant who walks close to the trench. It is deadly 

 work covering the plump, full-fed mallards and their 

 mates as they first rise in their heavy flight ; and 

 there is intense satisfaction in surprising a wild goose. 

 When gathered into flocks, as you see them generally, 

 the geese are among the most suspicious of created 

 things ; and the man who has stalked a flock with 

 its vedettes and sentinels set, may plume himself on no 

 ordinary achievement, unless some lucky accident has 

 befriended him. While a wild duck, fired at from an 

 ambush in the gloaming, as he wings his strong flight 

 overhead to his favourite feeding-grounds, is as hard 

 to hit as he is hard to kill. Even heavy pellets, 

 striking at certain angles, have an extraordinary knack 

 of rolling themselves up harmlessly in the down. 



We scarcely care to diverge to long-shore shooting, 

 which, though by no means an uninteresting subject in 



