A Fishing Expedition. 5 1 



at the water, and thus widened the marsh. It was 

 easy to understand now why all the water-fowl, teal 

 and duck, moorhen and snipe, seemed in winter to 

 make in this direction. 



The ducks especially exercised all our ingenuity 

 and quite exhausted our patience in the effort to get 

 near them in winter. In the large water-meadows 

 a small flock sometimes remained all day : it was 

 possible to approach near enough by stalking behind 

 the hedges to see the colour of the mallards ; but 

 they were always out of gunshot. This place must 

 be full of teal then ; as for moorhens, there were 

 signs of them everywhere, and several feeding in 

 the grass. The thought of the sport to be got here 

 when the frosty days came was enough to make one 

 wild. 



After a long look across, I began to examine the 

 stream near at hand : the rushes and flags had forced 

 the clear sweet current away from the meadow, so 

 that it ran just under the bank. I was making out 

 the brown sticks at the bottom, when there was a 

 slight splash caused by Orion about ten yards farther 

 up and almost at the same instant something shot 

 down the brook towards me. He had doubtless 

 landed a jack, and its fellow rushed away. Under a 

 large dead bough that had fallen across its top in the 



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