132 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



kicking the water into foam behind them, they rise as though 

 lifted by one pair of wings, and bear straight down for me y 

 sweeping over the pointed tops of the snow-laden firs, about 

 thirty yards distant, with the early sunlight showing up th& 

 white feathers lining their wings. The leader gets a charge 

 of No. 5, and comes down unmistakably to the dry ferns, 

 and another bird has the other barrel, which results in it 

 dropping both legs and falling in. a long incline "grounds'* 

 about fifty yards away. This is too much for " Jack," who y 

 with a yelp of delight breaks loose and returns in a few 

 seconds with the mallard in his jaws. 



Picking up the birds and slipping in two more cartridges r 

 we go on again under the firs through a gap in a stone wall r 

 and enter upon a tract of rather wild ground, where the 

 rabbits were lying out in their snow couches in great numbers, 

 to the intense delight of the dog, who chivied them hither 

 and thither bad form of course on his part and mine to 

 allow it, but what can you expect from a dog who has not 

 been out for a week ? So I let him ran riot for a time, but 

 when ten minutes' tramping brought us to the slope of the 

 great hill, and the long shadows of the pines fell on the snow 

 above us, "Jack" was called up, and put in an appearance 

 from a distant field with his tongue hanging out, panting- 

 prodigiously, and a general air of abashment. Matters 

 were then pointed oat to him, and he was instructed to 

 restrain undue zeal and keep to heel, he at once taking 

 up that position. We scrambled over a tumble- down stone 

 dyke, and entered the pleasant shade of pine woods. Wha.t 

 can be more lonely, yet what more attractive in its solitude 

 to a lover of nature than a great pine barren ? Once fairly 

 in, the sky is only to be seen directly overhead. All round 

 on every side, as the wanderer turns hither and thither, 

 stretch the long silent vistas of the wood, scores and 

 hundreds of fir stems, grey with lichens and long pendent 

 mosses, stretching away to the remote parts, where they are 

 blended into a confused mass that appears impenetrable 



