THE TALE OF A TEAL. 181 
a great city, and three huge warships creeping 
out to sea. 
Down, down the birds came to the estuary, 
falling like cannon-balls, checked when only 
twenty yards from the surface, and swung 
over a belt of tamarisks to a cosy-looking 
marsh pond. 
And in that instant the tamarisks were 
pierced by a stab of flame, a clapping, butting 
roar shattered the silence of the dawn, and 
our teal, crumpling up in mid-air, fell, turning 
over and over, with a sickening thud, to earth. 
Two days later one of the professors in a 
town in northern Europe received by post 
a little metal ring, with the number 7158R 
stamped upon it, accompanied by a polite note 
to say that the ringed bird, a teal, had been 
shot by a sportsman in the south of England 
on the 12th inst. 
Such is life! 
