ROUGH SHOOTING. 253 



whirring wings and dart away long before he can get within 

 range of them. The arts by which a man accustomed to rough 

 shooting from boyhood will out-manoeuvre the wildest of wild 

 birds are innumerable, but he cannot perhaps practise the same 

 trick twice running with equal success. Curlews I have known 

 so shy and cautiously clever that they would lead a man on from 

 hill to hill without giving him the chance of a single shot at them ; 

 and, after all, I have succeeded in getting close enough to kill with 

 each barrel, by the simple expedient of driving in a turf-cart past 

 the birds. Golden plover are equally gun-shy, and yet in cross- 

 ing a bog one may at times flush them from a tuft of rushes 

 almost under one's feet. 



In rough shooting, however, skill in woodcraft need not always 

 be exercised. In a little creek where the river is fed by water 

 that trickles down from a bog, over mossy slopes to the still pool 

 fringed with sedges, some wild ducks have reared their brood. 

 There the old birds and the young will have their headquarters 

 until sharp frosts drive them away to warmer estuaries. You 

 may pass and repass their haunt without disturbing them, but if 

 you pause to get a view through the network of branches, or 

 stalk cautiously, intent upon a shot at them, they will be up and 

 away towards a great tarn on the moor. Your best chance is to 

 send a water-spaniel in upon them and wait. Then they will take 

 one narrow circle before shaping a course, as if doubtful about 

 allowing themselves to be driven away by such an intruder, and 

 you may bring one or more down, if your nerve be good and hand 

 ready, as they wheel above the low tree-tops. Now among the 

 larch trees that stretch their slender twigs like a hazy network 

 across the riverside path your dogs may flush a woodcock, who 



