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Some students of fish-life believe that almost all wild-fowl will swallow the ova and fry of trout. It must be understood that I am not here entering into the question whether all these are really so injurious; I am merely giving a list of the "dogs with a bad name."
We can easily point them out the place by the side of the lake." A little further on we reached a smaller lake which was swarming with birds geese, ducks, divers, and other wild-fowl. Among them were several swans, beautifully white, with black necks, which kept swimming gracefully about like the great lords of the feathered population among whom they moved.
From one end, in the centre of which was the entrance, on either side a palisade extended, growing wider and wider, and reaching some way into the forest, somewhat in the same manner as a decoy for wild-fowl is formed. The trees were allowed to stand untouched in the interior of the corral. The palisades which enclose the corral were formed of trunks of trees about twelve inches in diameter.
So the big drain progressed foot by foot, creeping on as it were from the sea-shore, an innocent-looking channel that seemed valueless, but which would, when finished, rid the land of its stagnant water, and turn the boggy, peaty soil of the fen into rich pasture and corn-land, whereas its finest produce now was wild-fowl and a harvest of reeds.
Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long account how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the bank, with several other particulars that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished conversation for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a late invention of Will's for improving the quail-pipe.
Should this happen, matters would become serious on the island, though the commander still hoped to be able to maintain the crew for many months to come, with the help of such wild-fowl and fish as could be caught. Next morning, before daybreak, all hands were roused up, it being arranged that the pinnace was to start directly there was light enough for her to see her way between the reefs.
Each night and morning also there passed up the lagoon a stream of honking and chattering wild-fowl, the largest of which and most valuable, though least attainable, were the great Canada geese, which frequented this part of the island in large numbers.
On the slope the summer growth affords seeds; up the steep the one-leafed pines, an oily nut. That was really all they could depend upon, and that only at the mercy of the little gods of frost and rain. For the rest it was cunning against cunning, caution against skill, against quacking hordes of wild-fowl in the tulares, against pronghorn and bighorn and deer.
It is sad to reflect how indifferent to his example many other navigators have been, especially the masters of merchantmen; and that even at the present day, notwithstanding all the assistance which science is able to render, their crews often suffer fearfully from scurvy. Shooting and fishing parties now went out constantly, and an ample supply of wild-fowl was obtained.
But then it was such a dead time of year, no wild-fowl, no game, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country. And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one morning that when he next went to Woodston, they would take him by surprise there some day or other, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme.
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