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CHAPTER VII. 

 FLIGHTING. 



PEOPLE more often go "flighting" than "flight-shooting," and this is 

 especially true of the stranger who sets forth to bag the vespertinal Duck upon 

 the saltings. And yet, though birds do so often follow a regular line of flight, 

 I would myself far sooner go after them unattended by the local professional, 

 who already knows that line. Half the fun, I think, lies in endeavouring to 

 discover it for yourself. 



To pit one's own prescience against that of several friends, and then each 

 take up a position suggested by the lie of the land alone, is to me, even if I 

 get no shots, a far more pleasurable way of doing things than being degraded 

 to the level of a shooting machine, posted by a local behind a bush or bank, 

 and told to keep an eye on one particular quarter whence " the Duck are 

 certain to come." And what remarks some of these men do make to 

 encourage you, especially the better dressed and more up-to-date members of 

 the fraternity ! I was standing once waiting for Duck on a certain marsh in 

 Sussex, and up sneaked one of these worthies with an insinuating " good 

 evening, sir." Inasmuch as he had a dog with him and I hadn't, I decided to 

 put up with him, though, being a bad shot, I much prefer to miss my birds in 

 solitude. 



The sun began to sink below the horizon, and there came echoing over the 

 stillness of the marsh the well-known note of the Ringed Plover. " Ah ! " said 

 my mentor, with enthusiasm, " I likes to hear the note of the Curlew ; I 

 always thinks it a good sign ; it brings the Duck." 



I profited to this extent by the remark, that after it I paid more attention 

 to the side from which he didn't expect them than to that from which he did, 

 and my foresight was justified by the event. Not, I would hasten to add, that 

 I regard this individual as in any way typical of the average fowler, at all 

 events on the East Coast. They do know the notes of the birds and the 

 direction from which they may be expected to come, and if I was bent on 

 killing, and nothing else, I should most certainly take one with me if flighting 



