THE WATER SPANIEL. 213 
alder brakes, creeps deviously between swampy banks 
thickset with flags and sword-grass, furnishing the finest 
and favorite feeding grounds and breeding grounds for all 
the varieties of inland wild fowl. . 
When the young ducks, flappers as they are techni- 
cally named, about three parts grown, are able to make 
short flights only, with their legs hanging down so as just 
to bend the tops of the marsh grass, or to dimple the sur- 
face of the water, immense sport may be had in proper 
localities, which occur every where abundantly from the 
western parts of the State of New York, through all the 
Western States to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and 
the northern extremities of Lake Superior. 
_Nor are the Southern States, with their unfrozen 
springheads, tepid streams and vast verdurous lagoons, in 
this respect inferior. What could be done in the Ever- 
glades of Florida by a large party of good sportsmen, not 
afraid of roughing it, and duly supplied with a proper 
force of water-spaniels, both in the killing of game and 
the discovering of new species, is yet to be proved. 
Should snipe. or woodcock be found lying in the same 
localities, as is often the case, they will not escape the 
infallible nose and unwearied activity of the water-spaniel, 
nor will his long yellow legs and broadly flapping vans 
secure the hermit heron, nor his clanking cry of defiance 
or his sharp-pointed bill, fiercely and fearlessly plied, save 
the brown bittern from the mortal shot-shower. 
In beating such a stream as I have described, the 
shooter should walk some ten or fifteen paces wide of the 
margin, not following its sinuosity, but proceeding in a 
