DUCK-SHOOTING. 203 



sessed of so fine a sense of smelling, that, but for 

 the precaution of approaching them to leeward, or 

 of holding a piece of smoking turf in the hand, it 

 is no easy matter to get within reasonable distance. 

 The guns, also, which are employed for this pur- 

 pose, are much longer than those in common use, 

 and will kill at a much greater distance. A Duck- 

 shooter's life is often exposed to great hazard; the 

 sport, if so it may be called, being carried on usually 

 in Winter, late in the evening, or early in the morn- 

 ing, and most frequently in wet and marshy places, 

 or on the shores of wild and solitary estuaries, open- 

 ing through the lowlands near the sea. On these 

 occasions, some of them prefer going without even 

 a dog, the cold being often so severe, that no animal 

 could bear it. 



Many of the favourite feeding places consist of 

 those vast muddy flats, covered with green sea- 

 weed, over which the fowler must slip and slide in 

 the best way he can, or (were it not for his mud- 

 pattens, flat square pieces of board tie'd to the 

 feet,) through which he might sink up to the middle 

 waist. 



On one of these expeditions, a Duck-shooter, in 

 Hampshire, met with a perilous adventure. Mounted 

 on his mud-pattens, he was traversing one of these 

 oozy plains, and being intent only on his game, 

 suddenly found the water rising with the tide. 

 Aware of his danger, he looked round, but his 

 retreat was already cut off; he was already sur- 

 rounded with the flowing sea, and death stared him 

 in the face. But in this desperate situation his 

 presence of mind remained, and an idea struck him, 



