206 A FEW WORDS ON FEN-LAND. 



birds which visited the fens. "As a marksman he was extraordinarily 

 expert. With a gmi upwards of six feet in the barrel, and that placed in its 

 stock by the villasje carpenter, and altogether of a weight which nothing but 

 a most powerful arm could extend and elevate, would he kill a Snipe flying. 

 Before exhibiting this proof of dexterity, he usually requested to be supplied 

 with a fresh charge in lieu of what he threw away (as he termed it) after so 

 worthless a bird "*; " the wadding was a little dry sedge, of which he always 

 took a wisp in the punt." 



"Old Merry had not been troubled with much education" — not 

 " school-hoarded," in short ; but the Rev. Mr. Daniel never heard of that, and 

 poor Merry, doubtless, is much to be pitied (!) for the loss he sustained. 



Latham gives the best account of w^hat Mr. Wallace calls " that 

 cosmopolite bird, the Goose," in the ' Geographical Distribution of Animals ' 

 (c/". Latham, vol. x. pp. 252 et seqq.^. He enters into the plucking process 

 for quills and feathers (which need not be repeated), and says that the 

 feathers f contributed to the fame of the English archers. 



" An Englisli archer bent his bow. 

 Made of a trusty tree ; 

 An ari'ow of a cloth-yard long. 

 Unto the head drew he. 



* In this opinion he was quite at unity with that of our ancestors, who placed a higher value 



on a Blackbird than they did on a Snipe ; but while the former has greatly increased in numbers, 



the latter has rapidly diminished. Daniel says the price of a Snipe in Cambridge market used to 



be from Zd. to 5rf. (' Rural Sports,^ vol. iii. p. 179). Shakespeare quite bears out this idea in the 



lines — 



" For I mine own gained knowledge should profane. 



If I would time expend with such a snipe. 



But for my sport and profit." 



Othello, Act i. sc. 3. 



t " These feathers should consist of the second, thii-d, and fourth of each wing." — ArchtBol. 

 vii. p. 52 [«]. 



