178 FACT AGAINST riCTION. 



to wilder companions, and subject to errant flights, 

 the remembrance of one kind hand, food, and 

 shelter, will be present to tlie recollection of a bird 

 when the hands and gmis of others have scared 

 and wounded, even to a broken limb. There 

 is a little seat by this jDond, on which three 

 wild ducks will jump up and sit beside 

 me, while dozens of their fellows come be- 

 tween my feet and feed, and, inserting their 

 necks into the bags of corn, greedily swallow 

 the contents. 



It seems to me tliat in all field sports, to render 

 them doubly interesting and variedly beautiful, 

 there should be, to the mind's eye, a combination 

 of events, all adduced by, as it were, the great 

 chess-board of Nature thus laid bare for observation. 

 Yet many there are who think, when out on tlie 

 moors, of nothing but the grouse and tlieir gun. 

 When after partridges, they only see the stubble- 

 fields, turnips, or potatoes, grasp their guns, and 

 hear, alas ! to me, the wretched and mistaken 

 noise of an army of beating feet, tramping, to 

 startle to the wing the bcwihlcred birds. The 

 gunner on tlie moors must shoot to dogs, but tlie 

 ^^ranuin^i'" of and the use of those doors he leaves 



