THE STALKING-HORSE. 239 
between you and the fowl. Being within shot, take your 
level from before the fore pait of the horse, shooting as 
it were between the horse’s neck and the water. ‘ 
Now to supply the want of a stalking-horse, which will 
take up a great deal of time to instruct and make fit for 
this exercise, you may make one of any piece of old 
canvass, which you must shape into the form of an horse, 
with the head bending downwards, as if he grazed. You 
may stuff it with any light matter; and do not forget to 
paint it of the color of an horse, of which the brown is 
the best. . . . . It must be made so portable that 
you may bear it with ease in one hand, moving it so as 
it may seem to graze as you go.” 
Sometimes the stalking-horse was made in shape of an 
ox; sometimes in the form of a stag ; and sometimes to 
represent a tree, shrub, or bush. In every case it had a 
spike at the bottom, to stick into the ground while the 
fowler took his aim. 
In the “ Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII.” 
are various entries referring to stalking-horses, all of 
which appear to refer to the live animal ; and there is one 
entry relating to a stalking-ox. 
The gun used on these occasions was either the 
“ birding-piece” already described,* or the “ caliver.” 
Shakespeare has appropriately mentioned the latter in 
connection with wild ducks, in the first part of his 
* See pp. 164, 165. 
