110 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



ing places among the bogs ; and have, on such 

 occasions, met with as fair a share of success 

 and disappointment as usually falls to the lot of 

 any but a professional wild fowl shooter ; yet I 

 must confess that my predilections are rather 

 with the fowling-piece or the rifle than with the 

 heavy artillery of the craft ; and that I have felt 

 more real pleasure in a day's snipe shooting, 

 which was varied by an occasional right and left 

 at a duck or mallard, or an unexpected shot at a 

 teal or wigeon as they sprang from the sedgy 

 borders of some sequestered pool ; or in stalking 

 a flock of wild geese in the middle of a great 

 Irish bog though perhaps bagging but one of 

 the party after an hour's patient manoeuvring 

 than in the greatest success I ever experienced 

 after waiting for the arrival or passage of water 

 fowl, or in the best family shot I ever made from 

 a gun-boat. 



The principal destruction of wild fowl in the 

 British islands takes place on the coast during 

 severe winters, and although when they have 

 returned to their summer quarters among the 

 innumerable lakes of the Arctic regions, far from 

 the busy haunts of men, it might be supposed that 

 they and their young would be secure from the 

 attacks of any very formidable enemies, yet it is 

 not improbable that a great portion of the broods 



