306 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



repasts. Your long boots will not do it. Your desires 

 are strong, jour hearts are willing to go to this place, 

 but at your feet there flows deep, gurgling water, 

 frowning at you in murky sullemiess ; or seeming to 

 pleasantly smile, as tiny eddies revolve on its surface, 

 then silently disappear. Has the reader ever experi- 

 enced this ? When he has approached just such a 

 stream as this unawares, having constantly in view cir- 

 cling ducks, long-necked pin-tails, swishing blue-bills, 

 darting red-heads and gently-alighting mallards, their 

 quacking greeting your willing ears with sweetest ca- 

 dence, you see them dropping in only about one hun- 

 dred yards in advance of you, never thinking for a mo- 

 ment there is anything to prevent your getting among 

 them, until suddenly you step forth from beneath the 

 scraggy trees or the tall rice, and find deep water an 

 impassable barrier. Have you ever been there? If 

 you have, I know perfectly well how you felt. The 

 experience is very fresh in my mind how I once came 

 to a place of this kind, and was stopped by a flowing 

 and apparently endless stream. At my side was my 

 companion, one of the best retrievers that ever lived. 

 We stood there watching the flight, unable to get near 

 the birds. The dog took in the prospect and would 

 cast his brown eyes sorrowfully on me, as if regretting 

 the situation. I stood at this place for hours, shooting 

 at high-flyers and stragglers, while all the time in this 

 haven they had found, I could constantly see a deluge 

 of feathers dropping down through the trees. How I 

 wished for a boat, a raft in fact anything to have got- 

 ten across. As it was, I killed twelve mallards ', as it 

 should have been, with a boat, no doubt I would have 

 bagged from seventy-five to one hundred. 



