284 BLUE-FISHING. 



there may be a question which is the best part of 

 the day. The business man may consider that from 

 ten to three covers the case ; the belle may select 

 the same hours, but from a different portion of the 

 twenty-four; to the gourmand the dinner hour is. 

 all in all ; to the speculator, the time of meeting of 

 the Stock Board ; to the lover, the hour when his 

 mistress is visible ; but to the duck or snipe shooter, 

 no time equals that from dawn to full sunlight. 

 There was no denying Mr. Green's sage remark, 

 though Sloth begged for a little more " folding of 

 the hands to sleep," and the Commissioner was fain 

 to set out sleepy and breakfastless towards the shore 

 in the dingy, accompanied by guns, ammunition, 

 false birds and the paraphernalia of the fatal art. 

 Alas ! however on this particular occasion there was 

 error in the calculations. The Commissioner's 

 prophecy was simply the contrary of what it ought 

 to have been. In spite of winds and waves, the 

 movements of the planets and the conjunctions of 

 the constellations, there was no flight on the 9th 

 day of August. 1881. Seth Green having first built 

 a blind of sea-weed against the protest of the Com- 

 missioner, who insisted upon having it made of 

 bushes, armed himself with the ship's glass, not the 

 customary glass of yachting parties, and surveyed 

 the horizon from the moment it was visible until the 

 sun appeared. Then he announced that there was 

 not a bird anywhere, and utterly refused to wait for 

 them to come from some " undiscovered country," 

 while there was possible fishing to be had anywhere 



