CHAPTER VIII. 



WHERE RUNS THE TIDE. 



I HAVE not far to go to reach the river, and 

 through the meadow ditches the tide flows even 

 nearer to my home. Herein I count it good luck, 

 for from March to November, either on the mud 

 laid bare by the outgoing tide or along the sandy 

 shore of the river, I can always find one or more 

 representatives of the snipe, plover, and sand-piper 

 families, those long-legged birds that teeter along 

 the water's edge, closely imitating the ripples, with 

 which they are in constant company. Except two 

 or three very small species which are not gregarious 

 in their habits, these birds appear to interest sports- 

 men only, who see in them mere " gobbets of veni- 

 son" that more or less tax their skill to murder. As 

 game-birds they have been as much written about 

 as shot at, and it seems to be the principal business 

 of some weekly journals to announce the good for- 

 tune of Tom, Dick, or Harry, who killed twenty 

 yellow-legs at a shot, while nothing is said about the 

 twenty more that, wounded, escape the gunner only 



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