When the bright moon is rising, you walk in among the
tapering osier-wands, the rustling sedges, and dead dry hemlock stems,
and wait behind an aspen tree.
In the thick blackthorn bush a round dark ball indicates the blackbird,
who has puffed out his feathers to shield him from the frost, and who
will sit so close and quiet that you may see the moonlight glitter on
his eye. Presently comes a whistling noise of wings, and a loud 'quack,
quack!' as a string of ducks, their long necks stretched out, pass over
not twenty yards high, slowly slanting downwards to the water. This is
the favourable moment for the gun, because their big bodies are well
defined against the sky, and aim can be taken; but to shoot anything on
the ground at night, even a rabbit, whose white tail as he hops away is
fairly visible, is most difficult.
The baffling shadows and the moonbeams on the barrel, and the faint
reflection from the dew or hoar-frost on the grass, prevent more than a
general direction being given to the gun, even with the tiny piece of
white paper which some affix to the muzzle-sight as a guide. From a punt
with a swivel gun it is different, because the game is swimming and
visible as black dots on the surface, and half a pound of shot is sure
to hit something. But in the water-meadows the ducks get among the
grass, and the larger water-carriers where they can swim usually have
small raised banks, so that at a distance only the heads of the birds
appear above them.
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