such it may be called,-is far better understood than elsewhere. About the first week in September the teal begin to come, and about the beginning of October, if the easterly wind prevail, there is generally a flight of fowl from foreign countries, composed of ducks, widgeon, dunbirds, and teal, with a few of the shoveller and pintail ducks; but the principal flight of foreign fowl does not arrive till the weather becomes severe."

Such immense numbers of birds were taken in these decoys that the people of the district supported themselves chiefly on them, and also sent large quantities to the London market. More than 31,000 are said to have been furnished by ten decoys in one winter alone.

In some parts of China, the natives have a very ingenious mode of catching ducks. Large hollow gourds are purposely thrown into the water in large numbers, and allowed to float about. The birds being at length accustomed to approach these with impunity, their intended captors disguise themselves by placing similar gourds over their heads, with holes to see and breathe through, in the manner of a diver's helmet; then wading quietly along the shallow waters, with their bodies immersed above the shoulders, they have nothing to do but to approach the birds gently, and pull them under the water by their legs. The artist has depicted in the foreground of the frontispiece two gourds, with a man underneath each, in the act of thus pulling his unfortunate prey beneath the surface of the stream.

Wild-fowl shooting is very perilous work, and many a duckshooter's life has been exposed to great hazard: their punts are not unfrequently upset, and sometimes the men are overtaken by a quick flood-tide and drowned.

An adventure of this description once befell a Hampshire duckshooter. Mounted on his mud pattens (flat, square pieces of board, tied to the feet), he was traversing one of those vast muddy

flats, covered with green seaweed, which are among the most favourite feeding-places of the wild fowl, and intent only on his game, when suddenly he found the water rising with the tide. Aware of his danger, he gazed anxiously around, but perceived that retreat was already cut off; he was surrounded with the flowing. sea, and death seemed inevitable. In this desperate situation he did not lose his presence of mind. He looked about to see if any part of this mud desert were higher than the rest, and observing a small portion still a foot or two above the water, he hastened towards it, and planting himself there, struck the barrel of his long gun deep into the ooze, resolving to hold fast by it as a prop to secure himself against the buffetings of the waves, which were soon splashing angrily around him, and, at the same time, to use it as an anchor to which he might cling, and thus prevent himself from being carried away by the current of the flowing or ebbing tide. At all events, in case he must perish, his body would be thus found by the friends who might venture out in search of him. He was well acquainted with the usual rise of the tide, and had calculated that it would not reach above his middle, and that, if he could endure the cold of six hours' immersion he might be saved. But unhappily, he had not taken into account the state of the wind, or some other causes which not only brought the waters up more quickly than usual, but also added to their depth. Accordingly, having endured the chill and deadly feeling of the gradual rise, ripple after ripple, now covering his feet, then reaching knee deep, and advancing beyond his waist, he was horror-struck at finding that, instead of receding, as he had expected, it continued to creep upwards, until by degrees, it covered his shoulders. At length the spray burst over his head; and upon the next minute's tide, his life depended. He still firmly grasped the gun barrel, though he fully gave himself up for lost. The main land was too far distant to admit of his shouts being heard, and it was in vain to hope that

any eye, however sharp, could discern so small a speck upon the waves as the head of a human being. At this awful moment, looking downward, after casting a long, last, wistful gaze towards land, he thought he saw the uppermost button of his waistcoat beginning to appear. For a few seconds he remained in suspense, uncertain whether he had not been mistaken; but, before long, hope increased to certainty as button after button rose slowly into sight, and he became assured that the height of the tide was over, and that it was now upon the ebb. Though numbed with cold and nearly fainting, the revival of hope acted like a cordial on his spirits, and enabled him to endure the remaining tedious hours of his fearful imprisonment.

Many similar cases of surprise by the tide have occurred, but alas! with a different result; and many a hapless fowler has perished in the quicksands, which abound on some parts of the coast, or has met his fate by the bursting of his gun, or the upsetting or drifting away of his boat.

LARKS AND LAYS.

It involves something like a slur upon a race of very innocent joyinspiring birds, to apply their common name to the mischievous pranks to which youngsters are prone, with not a few of their elders, who ought to know better. How it has come to pass that they are so styled passes comprehension, unless on account of the bird being so eminently a creature of bounding habit and exuberant spirits. Thence the "skylarking" of sailors, an amusement occasionally conceded to them, that of climbing to the top of the highest yards, and sliding down the ropes. But most certain it is, that as the persons who are the victims of the pranks referred to are beguiled, so is it the fate of the warblers themselves to be

by wholesale ensnared. We have no sympathy with "larking," either of the literal or the metaphorical kind, for it is with regret that we see the songster whose nature it is to soar singing towards the heavens, reduced to the condition of a prisoner with only the area of a cage a foot square to move in. Yet, perhaps the feeling is more natural than intelligent, for something may be said in favour of the capture. No right is violated by it, since dominion. over the fowls of the air has been expressly assigned to the captors. The bird, too, seems to take to confinement well, judging from the song given forth right merrily from the patch of greensward in its cage. It is also generally tended with affectionate care, and is a great solace, by the liveliness of its notes, to the poor artisan in towns. So, if the captive is happy, and makes itself pleasant to others in captivity, we may be content with the arrangement, especially seeing that, however great the number of cage-birds in our houses, there is no sensible diminution of the free stock in the open country.

"Up with the lark" has become a proverbial phrase for early rising; and eminently is the bird,

Milton mentions among the incidents of the daybreak,

"To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night;
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled morn doth rise,
Then to come in spite of sorrow,

And at my window bid good morrow."

But, without breach of charity, it may be surmised that not a few

have noted and commended the early habits of the bird, who have rather sympathized in practice with Hood's Morning Meditations.' "Let ******

prate, upon a morning breezy,

How well to rise while night and larks are flying

For my part, getting up seems not as easy

By half as lying.

"What if the lark does carol in the sky,

Soaring beyond the reach of sight to find him out—
Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly ?

I'm not a trout!

"Talk not to me of bees and such like hums,

The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime-
Only lie long enough, and bed becomes

A bed of time.

"Why from a comfortable pillow start,
To see faint flushes in the east awaken-
A fig, say I, for any streaky part,

Excepting bacon!"

This is all very well for pleasantry. But it remains a sober truth, that those who have spent the most useful and happy days, and had them in the greatest number, have generally observed the habit distinctive of most of the feathered tribe, "early to bed and early to rise."

Capital larks, it may be said with literal exactness, are the skylark and woodlark, in comparison with others of the family. The former is the most universally admired, as it is the most common of our native songsters, and has been the theme of poetry from Chaucer downwards. No creature can well be more lowly, and at the same time lofty, in its habits. Except when soaring, it is quite terrestrial, rarely alighting on a tree, hedge, low bush, or wall. It roosts and nestles on the ground, runs along the surface with great celerity, and is fond of rolling in the dust, by way of cleaning its plumage, in the same manner as the common fowl. On the other hand, its flight is indeed a lofty one, continued upwards,