THE SHELDRAKE. 
199 
sions, some of them prefer going without even a 
dog, the cold being often so severe, that no animal 
could bear it. 
Many of the favourite feeding places consist of 
those vast muddy flats, covered with green sea- 
weed, over which the fowler must slip and slide in 
the best way he can, or (were it not for his mud- 
pattens, flat square pieces of hoard tied to the 
feet,) through which he might sink up to the middle 
waist. 
On one of these expeditions, a Duck-shooter, in 
Hampshire, met with a perilous adventure. Mounted 
on his mud-pattens, he was traversing one of these 
oozy plains, .and being intent only on his game, 
suddenly found the water rising with the tide. 
Aware of his danger, he looked round, hut his 
retreat was already cut off; he was already sur- 
rounded with the flowing sea, and death stared him 
in the face. But in this desperate situation his 
presence of mind remained, and an idea struck him, 
which might yet he the means of his preservation. 
He gazed round to see if any part of this mud 
desert was higher than the rest ; and observing a 
small portion still a foot or two above the water, he 
hastened towards it ; and when * there, striking the 
barrel of his long gun deep into the ooze, he re- 
solved to hold fast by it, as a prop to secure himself 
against the buffetings of the waves, which were 
breaking angrily around him, and had now reached 
his feet ; and at the same time, as an anchor, to 
which he might cling, and not he carried away by 
the current of the flowing or ebbing tide ; or, at all 
events, that if it was to he his sad fate to perish, 
