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CHAPTER VIII. 



DUCKS. 



DUCKS IN MARSH AND MAEKET THEIE ECONOMY AND FUTURE. 



No doubt the patriotic wildfowler is glad to see agriculture 

 creeping down to every sea shore, and a careful husbandry- 

 snatching from tidal rivers and estuaries, foreshores and 

 marshes, since the steady advance of coulter and mattock 

 indicate the national vigour. Yet he may be excused a 

 sigh, for there cannot be the smallest doubt that wild- 

 fowling is becoming harder and harder to obtain every 

 year, at least in the southern half of England. 



The state of the case is familiar enough to every marsh- 

 man. It matters little where he turns his steps, the old 

 familiar happy hunting grounds exist no more, as far as 

 sport is concerned ; the wastes inside the land wall have 

 been ploughed up, sown with lime, and now a trim crop of 

 turnips or button onions for some manufacturer of pickles 

 grow where, a little time ago, when our first gun was still 

 in its brilliant newness, the dykes were open and knee- 

 deep in water, blackthorn and elder formed impenetrable 

 thickets, ruffs played on the hummocks, big, wild-looking 

 cattle enjoyed their wallowings amongst whispering rushes 

 shoulder high, and nothing was heard but the larks and 

 plaintive whistling of plovers. But of course ducks don't 

 care for the turnip furrows or carrot plots, and they have 

 gone with the rest of the wild fauna. They will go just as 

 certainly if a series of tall volcanic chimneys soar into the 



