184 THE GADWALL. 
Ducks. We hid ourselves at the farthermost point of the creek, 
overlooking a long strip of open water running down the 
centre of it, and at the same time facing in the direction of 
the setting sun, so that in the short eastern twilight we might 
see the Wild Fowl more clearly as they flew betweeen us and 
the sky, where the last gleam of day still lingered. Presently 
they would begin to arrive, and if luck favored us, a goodly 
flight, after circling around, would prepare to pitch, though not 
on this occasion to feed, for it was a case of ‘first come first 
served, and the breech-loader was brought into play. Then 
the scared Wild Ducks would make off, leaving perhaps one or 
two of their number behind; but hardly are the fresh cartridges 
dropped into the barrels when another flight appears on the 
horizon, to meet with a similar reception; and so the sport 
continues for perhaps half an hour, when it becomes too dark 
to see to shoot longer. I have on three or four occasions, in a 
short space of time, shot over twenty Ducks and Teals in this 
manner; and one evening, a friend and I, assisted by the light 
of a brilliant moon, bagged thirty-eight Ducks, besides losing at 
least half a score more in the darkness.” 
I must add that to an old Norfolk flight shooter, the best 
part of the sport commences, when Captain Baldwin and his 
friends left off, ze, when in cold cloudy weather, such as we 
often have about X’mas, it gets pitch dark soon after sunset, 
and you shoot entirely by the whistle of the wings, and at 
most catch, just as you fire, the faintest glimpse of a shadow 
flitting across the gloom above. How the gun cracks at such 
atime. What a blaze of light it sheds, lightning-like, around for 
an instant, and then how pleasant, in the midst of the intense 
darkness that succeeds, to hear the one, two, three, heavy thuds or 
splashes of the victims, which, in a very few moments, your dogs 
will lay at your feet. It is just when it zs too dark to see, and 
when you have to shoot, judging not only direction and distance, 
but rate of flight also by ear, that flight-shooting becomes 
a real sport. But then for this you must not be posted on the far 
side of the jhil where the birds will circle, but some distance on 
the near side, at a place where the birds will certainly pass over 
with arrowy straightness, if also with arrowy speed. At no time 
I think does the sportsman feel a greater sense of elation than 
when standing thus in a clump of bushes, a cold wind and - 
drizzling rain bracing his nerves, he succeeds in making flight 
after flight, as they swish past unseen, each steadily contribute 
its quota to his bag. But I suspect that to make any hand of 
this night work, you must have practised it from childhood, and 
even then it is, no doubt, uncertain work. Sometimes you cannot 
hit anything, and sometimes, just as at billiards, you get your 
hand in, and not a wing can hurtle pass without paying the 
penalty. 
The quack of the Gadwall is very like that of the Mallard, 
