252 THE WILD DUCK 



at all of him ; for they know that he means them 

 no harm. But let a sportsman enter the meadows 

 and hide his gun ever so carefully, and make 

 himself ever so small, it is ten to one, that they 

 will rise in a cloud, when he is some four gunshots 

 away from them, and take themselves off to a 

 place of greater safety. Before a flight of wild 

 ducks a " drift " of wild fowl, as the country folk 

 expressively call it alights upon a meadow or on 

 a sheet of water, they fly round in wide circles, 

 perhaps a dozen of them, high in air, each succeed- 

 ing circle being rather narrower and rather nearer 

 to the ground, as though, with their extraordinary 

 keenness of scent, and sight, and hearing, they 

 would explore every inch of earth, and air, and 

 water in the neighbourhood, and make sure of 

 discovering any lurking foe. And when, at last, 

 they do alight, it is generally upon a spot where 

 the river is almost level with its banks, and where 

 those banks themselves are open and free from 

 herbage or bushes, so that they can command 

 every approach. And, then, to creep forth from 

 the kindly hedge in which you have doubled your- 

 self up and watched the whole process ; to crawl 

 on hands or knees, or almost on your stomach, 

 for a quarter of a mile or so, along the soaking or 



