DUCK-HUNTING. 237 
“ Alas! poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges.” 
Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 1. 
“ Duck-hunting,” Ze, hunting a tame duck in the water 
with spaniels, was a favourite amusement in Shakespeare’s 
day. “ Besides the clear streams that ran into the Thames, 
old London boasted of innumerable wells, now lost, sullied, 
or bricked up. There was Holy-well, Clement’s-well, 
Clerken-well, Skinners-well, Fay-well, Fede-well, Leden- 
well, and Shad-well. West Smithfield had its horse-pond, 
its pool of Dame Annis le Cleare, and the Perilous Pond. 
The duck-hunting in these pools, and at Islington, was 
a favourite amusement with the citizens.” * 
“ And ‘hold-fast’ is the only dog, my duck.” 
Henry V. Act ii. Se. 3. 
The sense of smell and hearing is possessed by most 
wild-fowl in an extraordinary degree, and, except under 
favourable circumstances—favourable that is to the shooter 
—they display what Falstaff would call “a want of valour,” 
and, as soon as they become aware of the approach of the 
enemy, ignominiously take to flight — 
“ Falstaff. There is no more valour in that Poins than 
in a wild duck.”—Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2. 
But, if the better: part of valour be discretion, Poins, like 
the wild duck, displays the better part :— 
* Thornbury, ‘‘ Shakespeare's England," i. p. 21; see also p. 33. 
