SPORTING FOR MEN OF MODERATE MEANS 273 



On another occasion after this attack — the next 

 year — I was woodcock shooting with a friend of 

 mine — an Englishman, now dead and gone. A 

 better sportsman did not exist. We had got into 

 a night of woodcocks, and we had killed nine 

 couples and a half, and were just on the point of 

 returning home, when I was seized with ague again. 

 We were about eight miles from Quimper at the 

 time. My poor friend carried me three miles on 

 his back before we could get a cart to take me 

 home ; but I soon recovered from this attack. I 

 once in a day killed forty-four woodcocks, and on 

 another occasion twenty-five. I had many narrow 

 escapes and adventures. In my book of " Over 

 Turf and Stubble," there is a full and exhaustive 

 account of sporting in France, and how you are to 

 go to work, with a list of places where sport is to 

 be had, and what you require. Woodcock and 

 snipe shooting is not so good as it was, in conse- 

 quence of the eggs of the former being taken and 

 eaten, as our plover eggs are, and also from the 

 ground being more drained. Still there are spots 

 and haunts where they are to be found and killed 

 in numbers. I once killed sixty couples of snipe 

 in some paddy fields abroad. 



As regards fishing, the man of moderate means 

 must not think of a river in Norway or Scotland. 



