270 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



not far. The shot rings out, and he lets his 

 neck loose, coming down with a splash, to be 

 half-buried in the soft peat mud of the run. 



Only recently I have seen the assertion made 

 that cock do not feed by day. That I contra- 

 dict ; for, under certain favourable conditions 

 of the weather, they do. A woodcock, when 

 boring on " softs," shows a very conspicuous 

 mark when he flirts his tail up ; as does the 

 moorhen. 



The first cock, as I said above, was missed 

 clean, but the second, put up from his borings 

 in fairly open ground, was dropped in his tracks 

 in fine form. 



One fine mallard and a cock represented the 

 bag for one very unpleasant afternoon, in which 

 three took part, my old friend, my humble self, 

 and one of the best water-dogs that ever 

 brought a duck out of the water. From the 

 fuss our friend made over Scolopax Rusticola, 

 there must be some strange fascination about 

 that bird ; the fine mallard he hardly reckoned 

 as worth picking up. 



Keepers, as a class, have had much abuse 

 heaped upon them ; yet the English keeper is 

 a product of our soil, generally worthy of it ; 

 and I have known some of the finest of these 



