240 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS. CH. XXXIV. 



changes of wind and weather induce them to fly 

 in different directions and to feed in different 

 fields ; and, as I have already said, nothing but 

 experience and observation can teach the sports- 

 man how to be tolerably sure of filling his bag 

 with these wary but excellent birds. 



There is one kind of wild-duck shooting which 

 appears to me to be the very lowest of all kinds of 

 sporting, namely, that which is usually called "flap- 

 per-shooting," which means murdering large num- 

 bers of young ducks by dint of dogs, guns, sticks, 

 etc., at a time of the year when nine out of ten of 

 these birds cannot fly, and are utterly helpless and 

 unable to escape. A vast number of half-fledged 

 birds may be slaughtered in this manner, but they 

 are useless when obtained. For my own part I 

 would quite as soon go out to kill young grouse in 

 June or July before they could fly ; nor do I see 

 that killing " flappers " is at all less murderous or 

 more excusable. In fact no wild-ducks ought to be 

 killed till they are strong enough on the wing to fly 

 easily and quickly; nor are they worth killing for 

 the larder until they have fed for some time in 

 the stubble-fields, for till then their flesh is as 

 muddy and soft as that of a coot or moorhen. 



