AUGUST. 



FLAPPER SHOOTING. 



BY J. R. ROBERTS. 



"WHEN Autumn, crowned with the sickle and the wheaten 

 sheaf, comes jovial on, nodding o'er the yellow plain," tis pleasant 

 to wander, gun in hand and dog at heel, down some moorland 

 valley, or across the marshy hollows of some upland plateau, in 

 quest of wild fowl. Not so long ago, in July, the sportsman 

 would hunt through the rushes in the deepest and most retired 

 parts of a peaceful brook or prattling trout stream when seeking 

 Flappers. At this season, when the old duck is sprung, the 

 brood is not likely to be far off, and when once found they are 

 then easily killed, as they attain their full growth before the wings 

 are fledged. The beneficent Wild Birds' Act, however, changed all 

 that. Indeed, August is quite early enough for Flapper-shooting ; 

 and in September it is often a welcome relaxant concomitant with 

 the delights of the partridge campaign. " When autumn's yellow 

 lustre gilds the world," the young wild duck are still truly, if not 

 technically, Flappers. " When the Flappers take wing," says 

 Colonel Hawker, " they assume the name of wild ducks." In this 

 age the pedantries of the phraseology of sport are considerably 

 modified ; moreover, despite the dictum of the greatest authority 



