PARADISE FOR WILD FOWL. 23 



of the latter, which forms the boundary between 

 Tipperary and King's County ; and having its 

 source in one of the vast bogs which extend 

 through this part of Ireland, winds along, deep 

 and silent, occasionally contracting itself as it 

 hurries over some declivity, or stretching out 

 now and then into wide sluggish pools, whose 

 swampy banks, well fringed with beds of reeds 

 and tall sedges, present a combination of every- 

 thing that can be supposed to constitute a para- 

 dise for wild fowl during the winter. 



Towards the close of a day's snipe-shooting, 

 wishing to vary iny bag with a few teal or wigeon, 

 I approached this spot as stealthily as possible, 

 just before the witching hour of twilight, when 

 the shades of evening might favour my design, 

 and before these birds had yet begun to quit this, 

 their favourite haunt during the day, and scatter 

 themselves over the bogs and morasses, their usual 

 feeding places at night By crawling along the 

 side of the river, frequently on my hands and 

 knees, keeping as near as possible to the margin, 

 so as to avail myself of every inequality on the 

 banks that might serve to mask my approach 

 while at the same time the crackling of the dry 

 sedges, as I wormed my way to the edge of the 

 pool, might be drowned by the noise of a rapid 

 just above I at last found myself, though up to 



