176 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



to pity sucli as this, I have frequently added to 

 the numbers of pets who feed from and out of 

 my hands — creatures who, in their earlier lives, 

 regarded the human race as paramount beasts of 

 cruelty and objects for terror. 



While on this topic, a strange fact has been illus- 

 trated in my decoy for wild fowl in the month 

 of November. After the first shooting day (mine 

 at present is a decoy for shooting ^ not for netting) ^ 

 in which five guns obtained in single overhead shots 

 one hundred and seventeen head of duck, besides 

 teal and widgeon, and three snijDcs, — of course some 

 others were wounded and lost, — we shot the various 

 pools on the moors, never disturbing, nor attemjDt- 

 ing to disturb, the fowl massed thickly enough in 

 a pool which is never disturbed, and in which it 

 is my delight to feed the birds myself 



Apparently, the flocks who were driven over 

 the guns at '^ the gazes" were very wild, and 

 at last so wary that they kept flying round and 

 round their haunts, high enough to be out of reach 

 of any gun or charge. I then went to my favourite 

 pool, called on the birds there, as I had done 

 all through the French Avar, for ^^ three cheers for 

 the Prussians," which they immediately gavCj and 



