BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 129 



Up springs a snipe, and with him a teal ! 

 Staunton seems slightly flurried as he fires 

 right barrel at the teal, left at the snipe. The 

 teal drops like a stone, the snipe alters his swift, 

 waggling flight to a sudden slow wave of the 

 wings, his legs hang down, and then he turns 

 straight round, and rises slowly over our heads 

 to tumble as dead as his companion at our feet. 



" You should take more time, Fred," re- 

 marks my uncle, who is never satisfied unless 

 every bird shot at is killed, as he calls it, neat 

 and clean. 



Mr. Redmond is poking about for himself. 

 We catch a glimpse of something brown dart- 

 ing between two bundles of withies, then thud 

 from Mr. Redmond's gun, and Bill Sliney 

 holds up in triumph another hare. 



"Egad, Redmond, you'll have enough of 

 hares to make a wig before the day is out," re- 

 marks my uncle, at which he and Mr. Red- 

 mond laugh consumedly, as they have been 

 accustomed to do at the same venerable joke 

 for twenty years at least. 



When we arrive at the course of a swift 

 brook, which the frost has been unable to 



K 



