BAY-SNIPE AND OTHER WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 29 



pines and yellowing oaks cast their shadows. Above 

 spreads the blue canopy of sky, hazy with the vapors of 

 Indian summer. Far away spreads old ocean's gray and 

 melancholy waste, dotted here and there with snowy sail 

 or smoking steamer; while beneath you lies the little 

 fleet of boats, in constant smoke, and, as the flocks of 

 fowl pass over them, we might celebrate the scene and 

 the coot in verse, thus: 



High, high in upper air they rise, 

 Their dark forms melting in the skies; 

 Seaward, in solid, compact mass, 

 The flapping squadrons onward pass; 

 And now they skim the frothy brine, 

 In lengthen'd file, in wedge-like line, 

 Ne'er sweeping over land or bar, 

 But skirting headlands high and far. 



Along the rocky shores of Massachusetts Bay, crowned 

 with bowery woodlands, bordered in vast acres of salt 

 marshes, and washed by the salty tides of the bay, lies 

 the little town of Marshfield, famous as the chosen and 

 last home of Daniel Webster. Many years since, 

 charmed with the location, he purchased an old farm- 

 house and a few acres of land, near the marshes and the 

 shore, where the Green River debouches into ocean, and 

 here he passed many happy years of life, in a haven where 

 he could retire from the bustle of the law and the dis- 

 tractions of politics, and refresh himself with the tranquil 

 pleasures of rural life and the exciting delights of fish- 

 ing, fowling for coot, and bay-snipe shooting. It was 

 our good fortune to be established, through his courtesy 

 and kindness, in his adjoining farm-house, and for some 

 three years of residence there we had good opportunity 

 to enjoy the sports of marsh and ocean, and the much 

 greater pleasure of seeing constantly the great states- 

 man. Brant Rock, not far from his home, was a famous 

 point for fishing, and for some years he might be found 



