1 64 BROADLAND SPORT 



tree trunks halved and thus made use of. When near the 

 haunts of the fowl, high reed screens had been placed at all 

 angles to shield the shooter, and litter had been scattered with 

 a free hand. 



Occasionally we passed secluded pools, overhung with 

 trees and alder bushes, too secluded for wildfowl, but beloved 

 by the rail and moorhen, many of which we disturbed as we 

 wended our way stealthily along. Wood-pigeons were there 

 in plenty. Pheasants ran on the path before us and behind, 

 like chickens in an orchard, and all the while we could hear a 

 perfect babel of quacking, splashing, whistling and flapping 

 from the wildfowl, whose nearer acquaintance we eagerly 

 looked forward to. 



At a bend in the pathway my agricultural friend left me, 

 with strict injunctions to go the last hundred yards as though 

 my life depended on it. Following his instructions to the 

 letter, I proceeded, with body bent (for which there was no 

 occasion, but in my excitement I thought it best), placing my 

 feet with a fastidious nicety, trembling all over, and working 

 myself into a cold perspiration from sheer excitement. This 

 did not augur well for good results, but I had yet ten minutes 

 to .wait and but twenty yards to go. Every step I took 

 stirred some new phase of animal life. From the reeds at my 

 feet water-rails glided, whilst now and again I saw a duck so 

 near to me that I could almost have touched it with my gun 

 barrels. 



I soon discovered that my path traversed a narrow pen- 

 insula of land, upon the extreme end of which my screen or 

 shelter was situated. This made me so nervous of disturbing 

 the main body of fowl before the appointed time that I 

 crawled the remainder of the way as best I could, and I did 

 not breathe freely until I was comfortably seated inside my 

 little three-cornered hut. Findiog I had five minutes yet to 

 wait, I lit a pipe to quiet my nerves a bit, laid out a row of 

 cartridges, placed my gun in readiness, and then placing a flat 

 stick in the reed screen, twisted it round in order to make a 

 peephole through which I could reconnoitre. 



