380 DUCK-SHOOTING, 



One day a party, including a number who were 

 not members, had been snipe-shooting, and some 

 of the latter indulged the habit of pushing on be- 

 fore their neighbor to shoot any bird they may have 

 seen alight, or had reason to believe was upon his 

 beat. Afterwards Henry remarked, as a sort of so- 

 liloquy, " He was a poor man — did not have much 

 education, and supposed he did not know ; but he 

 did not think it right for one sportsman to run in 

 ahead of another in order to shoot a bird before 

 him. Probably he was wrong; but that was the 

 way he felt, and could not help it." 



It was this curious individual who waked us the 

 next morning at an hour before daylight, and enjoyed 

 heartily the satisfaction of rousing us up at that un- 

 seemly time. We were no way loth, however, and 

 hastily swallowing our breakfasts and launching our 

 boats, pushed out under cover of the darkness for 

 our respective points. As yet the water and land 

 were scarcely distinguishable, and localities could 

 only be determined by intuition. Night was still 

 brooding with outstretched wings on the earth ; the 

 sky seemed to be close overhead, and the clouds 

 could not be distinguished from the open heavens. 

 Slowly, however, the outlines of the horizon be- 

 came apparent ; then the heavy masses of lowering 

 cloud that hung in the eastern sky, and left a nar- 

 row, transparent strip of light between themselves 

 and the horizon, came out in strong relief; the stars 

 faded and turned dim ; trees, bushes, and distant 

 elevations — the minutise of the landscape — ap- 



