THE JEKSEY COAST. 237 



has noticed how many fell to the first. Dropping 

 back to his position of concealment, he recommences 

 whistling, and the poor things, forgetting their fright 

 and anxious to know why their friends alighted amid 

 a roar like thunder, return to the fatal spot, and 

 again give the fortunate sportsman a chance for his 

 reloaded gun. 



It was for such glorious sport as this, with fair 

 promise of success — for the flight was on, as the say- 

 ing is, ^^'hen the snipe are moving — that I prepared 

 myself the next morning. Rising at earliest day- 

 break, a friend, the gunner, and myself sallied out to 

 the blind, and having set out our stools, possessed 

 our souls in patience for what might follow. A blind 

 is another ingenious invention of the devil — as per- 

 sonified by a bayman, in pursuit of wild fowl — and 

 is constructed by planting bushes thickly in a circle 

 ]-ound a bench. Seated upon this bench and con- 

 cealed from the suspicious eyes of the snipe by the 

 dense foliage of the bayberry bushes, the sportsman, 

 in comparative comfort, awaits his prey. In less 

 civilized localities he hides himself among the long 

 sedge grass, or scooj^s out a hole in the sand and 

 lies at length upon a watsrproof blanket. 



The wind had hauled, in nautical language, to the 

 south'ard and west'ard, and the sun's rays driving 

 aside the hazy clouds, illuminated the eastern sky 

 with fiery glory. The land and water, dim with the 

 heavy night fog, stretched out in broad, undefined 

 outline, and the heavens seemed close down upon 

 the earth. Through the hazy atmosphcro and slug- 



