CHASSE AU MIROIR. 129 



haps at this moment, the shooters, having all 

 re-loaded during a pause in the battle, are await- 

 ing the approach of the next detachment. The 

 newly arrived stranger casts his eyes about and 

 sees heaps of the dead and dying, but nothing as 

 yet on the wing to explain the meaning of all 

 those anxious, upturned glances that he notices 

 around him. Presently a voice exclaims " Here 

 they are, look out !" and a cluster of dark specks 

 becomes visible at a great distance. In a few 

 moments he perceives that this is a flock of 

 larks : but surely it is not possible that they will 

 notice that miserable toy which is now spinning 

 rapidly, urged by the frantic exertions of a 

 gentleman in bright yellow gaiters and bran-new 

 shooting-coat, crossed with a virgin shot-belt, 

 who pulls the string violently with one hand 

 while with the other he wields his full-cocked gun 

 as carelessly as if it were a shillelagh ! He is mis- 

 taken : they suddenly descend with rapidly closed 

 pinions, to within a few yards of the very spot 

 where he stands, or perhaps to a rival lure in the 

 same or in an adjoining field, and hovering over 

 it in apparent delight and admiration, patiently 

 suffer themselves to be shot at, and massacred in 

 considerable numbers. 



The birds thus killed are comparatively lean 

 and worthless, not fetching, in the market, within 



G 5 



