1 6 How I Became a Sportsman. 



and many a luckless moorhen I succeeded in 

 knocking over; but "Jack" liad one fault — he 

 would not retrieve, so that we lost many birds 

 from their falling in the water, where we could 

 not get at them. A happy thought occurred 

 to me, and I invented a most effective retriever 

 — simply a piece of hard wood about a foot 

 long, with a piece of string long enough to reach 

 across the other side of the river. Whenever 

 a bird fell in the stream the string was un- 

 wound, the piece of wood flung beyond the 

 bird, and hauled in. It of course very often 

 happened that a good many throws were 

 necessary to secure our prize, but we generally 

 succeeded in the end. 



One day, in walking down the river, a bird 

 dashed up from under my feet and darted 

 away like lightning. " What was that ? " said 

 I. " Snipe," said Ben. The very thing ! and 

 from that moment to snipe I devoted myself, 

 not to killing them, but firing at them. I 

 soon found out the likely places : in frosty 

 weather certain spots down the river held 

 snipe ; and no matter how often I visited the 

 places, the snipe were always at home. They 

 did not seem to mind my firing at them in 



