WILD SWANS. 233 
lifted your gun, as much as to say, ‘here’s a joke; he’s 
going to fire at us.’” 
‘*They didn’t find it a joke, though. Why didn’t you 
fire at them.” 
“Well, the fact is my gun was not loaded.” 
“I’m going to make up for it, however, the next time, 
so you needn’t make a fuss about it. I suppose you will 
put it in the papers one of these days.” 
“<It is very likely, unless you do better. But now we 
must stop our nonsense, for the first principle in shoot- 
ing wild fowl is, ‘ No talking in the blind.’” 
“All right; I’m as silent asa love-lorn oyster. Come 
on, ducks and geese, and beauteous swans.” 
They did not come on as rapidly as they ought, how- 
ever, and we waited at least twenty minutes before a 
large number of ducks came near enough to enable us to 
use our guns; but we made up for lost time on them, for 
we brought down three, and filled the air with small 
clouds of feathers. As we had no dog with us, we had 
to do our own retrieving. This was rather cold work, 
for the water was exceedingly chilly; so chilly, in fact, 
that we found it a difficult matter to handle our wea- 
pons when we desired to finish the cripples. Having 
secured the dead birds, we seated ourselves on a fallen 
log, while waiting to welcome the feathered creatures to 
hospitable graves, and devoted our time to discussing the 
effect of the presence of the steamer on our day’s sport, 
but before we could come to any decision about the mat- 
ter, she rounded a turn in the river, and gave vent to 
such a piercing scream that she aroused thousands of the 
natatores and sent them scurrying towards us. Seeing 
that the swans were mingled up with the geese and 
ducks, we reserved our fire until the former just passed 
us, and then opened on the cygnets, which occupied the 
rear, and bagged two of them. Having gathered our 
trophies, we took to our boat, and, paddling round the 
