THE STALKING-HORSE. 239 



between you and the fowl. Being within shot, take your 

 level from before the fore pait of the horse, shooting as 



it were between the horse's neck and the water 



Now to supply the want of a stalking-horse, which will 

 take up a great deal of time to instruct and make fit for 

 this exercise, you may make one of any piece of old 

 canvass, which you must shape into the form of an horse, 

 with the head bending downwards, as if he grazed. You 

 may stuff it with any light matter ; and do not forget to 

 paint it of the color of an horse, of which the brown is 



the best It must be made so portable that 



you may bear it with ease in one hand, moving it so as 

 it may seem to graze as you go." 



Sometimes the stalking-horse was made in shapt of an 

 ox ; sometimes in the form of a stag ; and sometimes to 

 represent a tree, shrub, or bush. In every case it had a 

 spike at the bottom, to stick into the ground while the 

 fowler took his aim. 



In the " Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII." 

 are various entries referring to stalking-horses, all of 

 which appear to refer to the live animal ; and there is one 

 entry relating to a stalking-ox. 



The gun used on these occasions was either the 



" birding-piece " already described,* or the " caliver." 



Shakespeare has appropriately mentioned the latter in 



connection with wild ducks, in the first part of his 



* See pp. 164, 165. 



