Duck-shooting in Wermland, Sweden. 63 



about people here for years. The spring ague is always the worst. 

 Lucki'y, mine is not a very severe attack ; and as each fit appears 

 to become weaker, I hope in a short time to be all right again. 



The sport upon the swamp I have described, depends in a great 

 measure on the state of the water. If the water is high we have 

 not only more ducks, but we can shove the boat along better - } and 

 if the water is low, the contrary is the case. In a dry season we 

 have scarcely any snipe, and I have remarked one thing as curious 

 regarding the snipe here. As I said before, it is one line of snipe- 

 ground along the whole extent of this meadow, perhaps four 

 English miles long, every yard of which appears to be good lying 

 for snipe 5 and yet I only know five places on the whole swamp 

 that are worth beating. In these places the snipe lie in wisps, and 

 often far out in the water, and if they would only lie well, a man 

 would have little trouble in killing five or six couples in each place ; 

 but as soon as ever you flush your first bird, his " scape, scape" puts all 

 his comrades on the qui vive, and all at once they keep rising round 

 you, till I am certain that I have seen considerably above a hundred 

 in the air at one time, flying round and round, rising higher and 

 higher, a sure sign as every old snipe-shooter knows that he is 

 pretty certain never to see those birds again that day. Still, when 

 the wind has been blowing fresh, I have had some capital shooting 

 on this swamp, and one day this very September I ought to have 

 bagged twenty couple, for I had forty-five shots, but only picked up 

 thirty-one birds. In fact, I begin to fear very much that I am fast 

 going off my shooting. There is always something wrong now, 

 either with the gun or the ammunition. The powder is bad, or 

 the shot is either one size too large, or one size too small. It never 

 used to be so ; and depend upon it when a man begins to make 

 all sorts of excuses when he misses, he is either a pottering shot, or 

 his nerves are not in tune. I would rather by half see a man miss 

 ten shots clean running and never say a word about it, than see 

 another man kill five out of ten, and bother you with a hundred 

 reasons and excuses why he missed the other five. However, on 

 this day I had some little excuse, for half a gale was blowing from 



