192 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 



fen, and pitch in the pools and ponds and in the 

 dykes. The shooter must select a part close to 

 a sheet of water on which the moonlight shines. 

 If there is no natural cover near the spot, he 

 should have a bundle of straw thrown down by 

 it in the day time, or, better still, a hole dug in 

 the peat, a barrel put into it, and the cask lined 

 with dry hay. Into this nest you retire, and 

 wait for duck-flight. Even then the inevitable 

 curlew will take a start out of you, by giving 

 you a piece of his mind from the dark in which 

 he is now hovering, for the express purpose, 

 apparently, of rendering your labour in vain. 

 You will also hear and see the snipe with out- 

 stretched wings bleating and skirling quite 

 close to you. The big bird sailing now and 

 again backwards and forwards on the marsh 

 is the supper-hunting owl, who lives in an 

 ivied wall miles away near the farmhouse 

 where the solitary light sparkles, and from 

 which a dunghill cock, of unnatural habits, 

 shouts an untimely drunken sort of stave. 

 Then there are intervals of the most profound 

 stillness, when suddenly the " tingling " silence 

 is broken in upon by a soft splash in the water, 



