tennis-court. Wild with anxiety, we forced the punt at the bulrushes, in the corner where it looked most open, and with all our might heaved it over the weeds and the mud, and so round the islet into the next pool, and thence into the open water. It was a wild duck, and was speedily on board.

Stepping the mast and hoisting the sail, we drifted before the faint breath of air that now just curled the surface, steering straight across the open for the stony barren islands at the mouth of the bay. The chart drawn in pencil—what labour it cost us!—said that there, a few yards from the steep shore, was a shoal with deep water round it. For some reason there always seemed a slight movement or current—a set of the water there, as if it flowed into the little bay.

In swimming we often came suddenly out of a cold into a stratum of warm water (at the surface); and perhaps the difference in the temperature may have caused the drift, for the bay was in shadow half the day. Now, wherever there is motion there will fish assemble; so as the punt approached the shoal the sail was doused, and at twenty yards' distance I put the anchor into the water—not dropping it, to avoid the splash—and let it slip gently to the bottom.

Then, paying out the cable, we drifted to the edge of the shoal without the least disturbance, and there brought up. Orion had his bait ready—he threw his line right to windward, so that the float might drag the worm naturally with the wind and slight current towards the shoal.

The tiny blue buoy dances up and down on the miniature waves; beyond it a dazzling path of gold stretches away to the distant osier-islands—a path down which we came without seeing it till we looked back. The wavelets strike with a faint 'sock-sock' against the bluff overhanging bow, and then roll on to the lee-shore close at hand.

It rises steep; then a broad green ledge; and after that, still steeper, the face of a long-deserted sand-pit, where high up a rabbit sits at the mouth of his hole, within range, but certain to escape even if hit, and therefore safe. On the turf below is a round black spot, still showing, though a twelvemonth has gone by since we landed with half a dozen perch, lit a fire and cooked the fishes. For Molly never could 'a-bear' perch, because of the hardness of the scales, saying she would as soon 'scrape a vlint;' and they laughed to scorn our idea of skinning them as you do moorhens, whose 'dowl' no fingers can pick.

So we lit a fire and blew it up, lying on the soft short grass in a state of nature after a swim, there being none to see us but the glorious sun. The skinned perch were sweeter than any I have tasted since.

'Look!' whispers Orion, suddenly. The quill above the blue buoy nods as it lifts over the wavelets—nods again, sinks a little, jerks up, and then goes down out of sight. Orion feels the weight. 'Two pounds, if he's an ounce!' he shouts: soon after a splendid perch is in the boat, nearer three pounds perhaps than two. Flop! whop! how he leaps up and down on the planks, soiled by the mud, dulling his broad back and barred sides on the grit and sand.

Roaming about like this with the gun, now on the water in the punt, and now on land, we gradually came to notice very closely the game we wished to shoot. We saw, for instance, that the rabbit when feeding or moving freely, unless quickened by alarm, has a peculiar way of dwelling upon his path. It almost resembles creeping; for both fore feet stop while the hinder come up—one hinder foot slightly behind the other, and rather wide apart.

When a fall of snow presents a perfect impression of his passage, it appears as if the animal had walked slowly backwards. This deceives many who at such times go out to pick up anything that comes in their way; for they trace the trail in the wrong direction. The truth is, that when the rabbit pauses for the hinder feet to come up he again rests momentarily upon these before the two foremost are put forth, and so presses not only the paw proper but the whole first joint of the hind leg upon the snow. A glance at the hind feet of a rabbit will show what I mean: they will be found to display plain signs of friction against the ground.

The habit has given the creature considerable power of standing up on the hinder feet; he can not only sit on his haunches, but raise himself almost upright, and remain in that position to listen for some little time. For the same reason he can bark the ash saplings higher up than would be imagined: where he cannot reach, the mice climb up and nibble straight lines across the young pole, as if done with a single stroke from a saw that scraped away the rind but did not reach the wood.

In front of a large rabbit bury the grass will be found discoloured with sand at some distance from the mouth of the hole. This is explained by particles adherent to the rabbits' hind feet, and rubbing off against the grass blades. Country people call this peculiar gait 'sloppetting;' and one result of it is that the rabbits wear away the grass where they are numerous almost as much as they eat it away.

There was such a space worn by the attrition of feet sprinkled with sand before the extensive burrow at the top of the meadow where I shot the woodpigeon. These marks suggested to us that we should attempt some more wholesale system of capture than shooting. It was not for the mere desire of destruction, but for a special purpose, that we turned our attention to wiring. The punt, though much beloved, was, like all punts, a very bad sailer. A boat with a keel that could tack, and so work into the wind's eye, was our ambition.

The blacksmith Ikey readily purchased every rabbit we obtained at sixpence each. Rabbits were not so dear then as now; but of course he made a large profit even then. The same rabbits at present would be worth fifteen or eighteen pence. Every sixpence was carefully saved, but it was clear that a long time must elapse before the goal was attained. The blacksmith started the idea of putting up a 'turnpike'—i.e. a wire—but professed ignorance as to the method of setting it. That was a piece of his cunning—that he might escape responsibility.

The shepherd, too, when obliquely questioned, shook his head, pursed his lips, threw his pitching-bar over his shoulder, and marched off with a mysterious hint that our friend Ikey would some day put his 'vut in it.' It did not surprise us that the shepherd should turn his back on anything of the kind; for he was a leading man among the 'Ranters,' and frequently exhorted them in his cottage.

The carter's lad was about at the time, and for the moment we thought of applying to him. He was standing on the threshold of the stable, under the horseshoes and weasles' feet nailed up to keep the witches away, teasing a bat that he had found under the tiles. But suddenly the dusky thing bit him sharply, and he uttered an oath; while the creature, released, flew aimlessly into the elms. It was better to avoid him.

Indoors, they would have put a very heavy hand upon the notion had they known of it: so we had to rely solely upon the teaching of experiment. In the first attempt, a stick that had been put by for the thatcher, but which he had not yet split, was cut short and sharpened for the plug that prevents the animal carrying away the wire when snared. This is driven into the earth; at the projecting end a notch was cut to hold the string attached to the end of the wire away from the run.

A smaller stick supported the wire above the ground; this latter only just sufficiently thrust into the sward to stand firmly upright. Willow was used for this at first; but it is a feeble wood: it split too much, or bent and gave way instead of holding the wire in its place. The best for the purpose we found were the