298 



WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



of pure white, as we gazed at the huddled bunches of 

 snow-geese, standing closely together, forming tents of 

 the purest white, we imagined them the legions of a 

 Tast encampment. 



How often that sight has returned to me, and how I 

 have wished that nature had endowed me with the 

 skill to have sketched, then reproduced in oil that grand 

 scene, for I have always felt that it was the acme, the 

 extreme, the most picturesquely beautiful of any I had 

 ever seen of wild life. 



We had a span of young horses ; they were fiery and 

 restless ; they were anxious to go, and the wind blow- 

 ing fresh, the ground hard, smooth and free from ruts, 

 we told the driver to let them run. Off they went like 

 the wind, toward the geese. A few preliminary honks, 

 and then a thousand gray bodies moved closely together 

 and stretched up their long black necks in wonder and 

 affright. As we neared them, from a thousand throats 

 discordant sounds were uttered by the frightened birds. 

 We gained on them, but their long, slow sweep of wide 

 wings was too much for speedy horses, and the field was 

 soon left to our control and occupancy. 



It was extremely foolish to have done this, but 

 carried away with excitement and thinking they would 

 return again later in the afternoon, we drove them out 

 thoroughly alarmed. 



Our blind we made in the centre of the field, far 

 from the fence. We at first thought it impossible to 

 make one that would conceal us, and not frighten the 

 geese. I had noticed a sprinkling of corn stalks scat- 

 tered here and there on the black ground, and we de- 

 cided to have a blind. We spread an old horse blanket 

 on the damp ground, got some hay, a few corn stalks, 



