Fores's Sporting Notes & Sketches (Volume 15) - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898. Excerpt: ... arrange matters--hist! here she is. Come in, my dear, and take my place; I'm off to luncheon. Perhaps you'll be glad to hear that Pavvney has left England. I'm thinking of buying that mare of his--pity she swerves at her fences.' WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL. By L. Clement. OW is it that wild-ducks when they find themselves driven into the net of a decoy 'pipe' are suddenly struck dumb? Not a murmur is heard from the seething mass, and each one meets his fate, at the hands of the decoyman or of his assistant, with the fortitude of a Spartan. Indeed, so undisturbed is the stillness, when this wholesale execution takes place, that the writer has seen three dozen ducks' necks twisted at one ' catch,' whilst a large flock of wild-fowl were placidly sitting on the ' pond,' within easy stone throw, and they were totally unaware of the wholesale murder of their confreres, which was taking place within a few yards of them, so to speak. Had the said victims called out, as curlews would to a certainty have done (if they could be decoyed), the next ' catch' would have been most successfully spoiled by their outcry, but the ducks met their doom in silence. By the bye, talking about curlews, they are about the noisiest of the sea-fowl tribe, and they are also amongst the most alert--and that is saying a good deal, for most sea-fowl and wild-fowl are exceedingly wide-awake and vigilant. For instance, only once during the writer's shooting career--which has extended now over a period of some thirty-five years,--only once has he succeeded in stalking a bunch of oyster-catchers so capitally as to actually almost jump upon them. This is how it happened. It was during the hard winter of 1870-1. The writer was shooting along the coast, and sport was absolutely first-rate, for the ...