WITH A STANCHION GUN. 369 



sea. If you are near enough to reach a wounded 

 bird without a gun, take him horizontally across 

 the neck with the edge of an oar, or you may thrash 

 aw r ay at him to no effect, till you have splashed your- 

 self from head to foot ; so very hard are the upper 

 coverts of his feathers. In shallow water, where he 

 is not obliged to swim, a good light dog will do more 

 in five minutes, than a party of men could do in an 

 hour. But when once the dog is out of his depth, 

 these birds are so quick in diving, that they will most 

 probably escape from him. 



HOOPEHS, or WILD-SWANS. When the winter 

 further advances, and the birds are driven from 

 Holland and the Baltic to the more genial climate 

 of the south, and then followed by severe weather 

 to the refuge they have chosen, their last alternative 

 is to leave the fens, ponds, and decoys, and betake 

 themselves to the sea coast, in order to avoid starva- 

 tion. Then, and then only, it is, that all this di- 

 version may be enjoyed in perfection, and without 

 much trouble or difficulty. We have then a variety 

 of all kinds of wildfowl, and sport for every shooter. 

 And it is at such a time as this only, we can expect 

 to see the monarch of the tribe, the hooper, or wild- 

 swan. We had, during the hard winter, in 1823, a 

 fine specimen of all this on the Hampshire coast, the 

 flats of which, off Keyhaven and Pennington, were, 

 for some weeks, covered with ice and snow. Nothing 

 could be more novel or beautiful than the appearance 

 of the harbour, which was one solid region of ice, 



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