STALKING WILD FOWL 253 



the freezing ground, availing yourself of any slight 

 depression, or of any friendly bush, or hatch, or 

 watercourse ; to hear, or overhear, the low, con- 

 fidential cackling of the unsuspecting wild fowl on 

 the water, and the loud beating of your own heart, 

 as, in a state of nervous excitement, half painful, 

 half pleasurable, you get nearer and nearer, till 

 you calculate that you are, now, two gunshots, 

 now, a gunshot and a half, and, now, just one gun- 

 shot, from the spot where you saw them alight ; 

 then, to spring suddenly to your feet, and, as the 

 birds rise in loud tumult and confusion, with their 

 heads, as they always do, to windward, to bring 

 down, it may be, a right and left, a mallard and 

 his mate this is sport indeed ; this, in my opinion, 

 is worth a score of tame bred pheasants knocked 

 down with scientific coolness, at the hottest corner 

 in a well-preserved cover. Of course, you will 

 fail in your stalk much oftener than you succeed. 

 The wild duck will, in their perversity, nine times 

 out of ten, rise when you are three gunshots off; 

 but is not the exertion, the endurance, the glow, 

 the enthusiasm of one successful stalk worth all the 

 previous failures or, rather, would it be worth 

 half as much, if you had not had those previous 

 failures ? 



