To Mountain Tarn 



A friend of mine, a charming old fisherman, 

 brought home a clutch of the eggs of the shel- 

 drake, and placed them under a common duck. 

 The ducklings duly appeared, found nothing 

 unusual in the conditions, and followed like little 

 puppies. If one had suggested that he should 

 take them to the waterside and shoot them, he 

 might have used strong language. " Na," he 

 would have said, "if I want to eat them, I'll 

 thraw their necks here." 



Such confusion is there between natural and 

 artificial conditions ; so is blurred the line which 

 separates tame and wild. The freest of winged 

 creatures are raised as pheasants for the coverts. 

 It is not nice to thraw their necks, and one is 

 ashamed to shoot. Such broods satisfy Huxley's 

 definition of a hybrid as having the vice of both 

 parents and the virtues of neither. And hybrid 

 game yield hybrid sport. 



The truly wild life of the land is in balance, is 

 self-adjusting. Wild-fowl seek the places they 

 affect, and fill these to the full capacity. Where 

 are none is no place for them. Possibly the 

 matter looks more serious than it really is. The 

 duck-ponds, where people play at shooting, may 

 be comparatively innocent. Nature may prove 

 the stronger in the long run. Only the half- 

 tamed birds may cross with the wild, and ener- 

 vate the wild life of the land. 



Our wild-fowl quite naturally fall into three 

 239 



