WILD FOWL SHOOTING 



CHAPTER I. 



REVERIES. 



" The childhood shows the man, 

 As morning shows the day." 



WHEN Thomas Hood wrote those beautiful lines, " I 

 remember, I remember, the place where I was born," he 

 had passed the days of his youth, and was in the bloom 

 of a vigorous manhood. Of the many beautiful poems, 

 emanating from his fertile brain, this one must have 

 afforded him the greatest pleasure in writing, and no 

 doubt was the one he loved best. It not only came from 

 his brain, but sprang from the deepest recesses of his 

 heart. u He remembered, he remembered, the place 

 where he was born." Why did he remember it ? Be- 

 cause, after years had rolled over his head, changing 

 the golden hair of youth into the sombre hue of man- 

 hood, streaking with gray the hair of his later years, lie 

 could look back into the past, ruminate over the joys 

 and sorrows of his life, and recall with pleasure and 

 gratification the scenes of his early childhood. And 

 who cannot? 



I have in my mind's eye at this moment, a youth of 



