In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury, 97 



an egg for dinner. These birds nest in very curious places. One 

 was cut out in the mowing grass in the centre of the field in front 

 of the vicarage, where you might have expected a Partridge's nest, 

 but scarcely a Duck's; while another was discovered on a high 

 bank nearly half-a-mile away from the river, so that it is a matter 

 of speculation how she conveyed her offspring to their natural 

 element. The wild Duck is one of those birds that will use all 

 kinds of artifices to draw your attention away from her newly- 

 hatched progeny : flapping helplessly along the water, and tumbling 

 about in the most grotesque fashion, to divert your eye. There is 

 no sport more exciting, to my mind, than the waiting for Ducks at 

 flight time, just in the gloaming of a winter's evening. The sport 

 does not last for more than half-an-hour, but during that time, if 

 you are lucky, you may often bag two or three couple. This kind 

 of shooting requires you to be wide awake. They come and go like 

 shadows, while the creaking of their wings overhead, though they 

 are themselves indistinguishable, warns you to be on the alert, as 

 one may swoop across you without a moment's notice, and unless 

 you are quite ready for an emergency, you will surely be too late 

 for the fair ! In the autumn you may sometimes have good sport 

 with them in the corn-fields ; a piece of laid barley or other corn 

 having a great attraction for them. A friend of mine (T. A. Powell, 

 Esq.), with his brother, once bagged seven couple in this way in a 

 few minutes. They had noticed a piece of barley much laid, and 

 evidently trodden down by birds, and divining it was caused by 

 wild Ducks they took their stand there one evening, in different 

 corners of the field, and without moving from their places they 

 knocked over in a few minutes fourteen birds, each of which was 

 safely brought to bag by their retrievers afterwards. The best 

 time, however, of making a bag in our meadows, is during a fall of 

 snow, after some hardish weather. While the snow is falling they 

 keep on dropping in in all directions, at all hours of the day ; and 

 a true sportsman, who minds not wind or weather, may then make 

 a very fair and varied bag with us. My brother once killed a very 

 beautifully marked Mallard here, which I always regretted never fell 

 to my share. He was out shooting with a brother-in-law, when, amid 



VOL. XXII. — NO. LXIV. H 



