94 ACCESSIBLE FIELD SPORTS. 



tering in disgust at his wildness. However, lie continued 

 to fly round in circles, each gradually diminishing in 

 diameter, of which the water formed the centre. Move 

 I dare not, one inch would probably betray me, and I 

 nearly squinted my eyes out of my head, following, as far 

 as possible, his circular flight. At length the wished- for 

 chance arrived, and he presented a fair broadside, about 

 thirty-five yards distant ; holding my gun almost two 

 feet in advance, I pressed the trigger, and down he 

 came all of a heap, and almost to the ground ; my dog 

 was already on his way to pick him up, when, with a 

 violent effort, the bird recovered himself and com- 

 menced slowly at first to rise, quicker and quicker 

 became his ascent. " Why don't you put in your 

 second barrel ?" I hear you exclaim. Well, simply for 

 this reason, that I had already commenced loading, and 

 the whole performance was so unexpected that I lost 

 my self-possession. Higher and higher he went, almost 

 perpendicularly, as if he were bound for a trip to the 

 clouds. Watching, with straining eyes, his extra- 

 ordinary performances, feeling fully convinced he was 

 hit in the head, I suddenly perceived him turn on 

 his back, and if his ascent had been rapid, the descent 

 was doubly so, for, when he struck terra firma, the 

 thud that he made was sufficient to indicate, if life had 

 not previously been extinct, it now undoubtedly was. 



