WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 301 



as many as five or six in a cluster, the former rarely exceeding a 

 couple or a leash at a time. 



It often happens that in shooting, "the first blow is half 

 the battle," and if a man begins badly, he is very apt to go on 

 so throughout the day. But, happily, Keryfan's contretemps at 

 starting in no wise affected his nerves afterwards. We had 

 arranged to shoot the bends alternately first, and four times in 

 .succession he killed his right and left at duck, without giving me 

 a chance to help him in the matter ; though, when a leash rose, 

 the crumb necessarily fell to my lot. In the midst of our sport, 

 a mallard I had shot at and wounded made the best of his way, 

 high in the air, direct for the sea. Suddenly, however, a pirate 

 hove in sight in the form of a peregrine falcon, and, darting after 

 the mallard, like a fleet greyhound after a beaten deer, struck it 

 so fierce a blow in the nape of the neck, that the quarry was 

 instantly paralysed, and fell like a rag to the earth, literally 



"Decidit exanimis, vitamque reliquit in astris 

 Ae'riis " 



Noel, who picked up the bird stone-dead, baulked the pirate 

 of his prey ; yet, after the closest examination, no marks of 

 violence could be detected about the head or neck ; and if we 

 had not witnessed the coup with our open eyes, our little jury must 

 have pronounced an open verdict as to the cause of death. 



Although on several occasions we managed to floor more than 

 a brace of teal at a rising, the duck, so generally found in couples 

 only, afforded by far the prettiest shooting ; they certainly did not 

 slip away so rapidly as the smaller bird ; and, presenting from 

 their larger size an easier mark, Keryfan missed but one for the 

 day ; that, however, with one of Eley's green cartridges in my left 

 barrel, I was lucky enough to kill after him at a distance of nearly 

 seventy yards. On rejoining Shafto at a small auberge on the 

 road between Scaer and Gourin, our two Bretons compared notes 



