A DAY'S DUCK SHOOTING ON LAKE ELLESMERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 371, 22 July 1869, Page 2

A DAY'S DUCK SHOOTING ON LAKE ELLESMERE.

♦ (being extracts from a letter to a friend in england.) You remember the sport we used to have in olden times, by the dear old river that was like a boon companion to us, summer and winter I How we used to be u j before break of day, when all the ground was white with snow, or crisp with frost, and we had to break the ice in our water jugs before we could wash, load our guns in the early twilight, our fingers benumbed with cold, and the spaniel, alert to be off, jumping first up at one and then at the other, trotting a little way on the road, and then coming back to see how it was we were not ready, and giving a little impatient bark or two, as much as to say " why don't you make haste ?" And then away to the river side, peering cautiously into every likely pool, with the old dog well to heel, patiently waiting his time to be useful, then a sudden whirr and splash in the water, and bang, bang. A brace or so of wild duck before breakfast was not an unusual thing with us, was it ? It would have been a less unusual thing than it was, old boy, I can tell you, had Providence allowed me the misery of knowing that, through many many subsequent years of my life I should be, from force of circumstances, compelled to stay in one of the most desolate corners of the universe as far as sport and what is commonly called pleasure are concerned. If a fellow is fond of " meetings," what a chance he has to gratify his taste ! They get them up here to cry up and cry down all manner of things, and what we call our great men spout and resolve this and tbat, and go home and forget all about it, having, of course, to get up a speech for the next meeting forthwith. As their leisure is thus agreeably taken up, tliey have no time for our good old English sports, and so we have nofc so many advocates for the acclimatization of English game as some of us wish. Having, as you may well imagine, had . long ago a sickener of " meetings " and entertainments, I was heartily delighted when my friend Goodfellow said one day, * Why don't you come down to my place and have some duck-shooting ? " True, why didn't I ? I had been grinding away at my work yaar after year (and you know what thankless work mine is), and I was beginning to feel my heart a little too heavy, and my thoughts not quite as youthful and buoyant" as they should be, a«d here was a chance to get a little of nature's — that kind physician — healing balm in one of the very pleasantest ways that could be for me; so, all thinafs being arranged, I went to my friend's house the night before, and afc daybreak next mor i> ing all was ready for a start — Goodfellow,!? boy who had never shot before, myself, acfa two retrievers forming the company. Away we rattled 6Ver the hard frosted road for two or three miles, over sand hills, where the trap was momentarily in danger of being cajjr sized, and then on to the head of the lakp. Before us lay a long stretch of level land, covered with a brown sort of lichen weep, with here and there a pool of stagnant water, where the quick-eyed grey duck, taking Bis morning bath, soon whisked away, and thfcn, just as we got well out on the flat, the ranges that had hitherto shown their hoary summits snow-crowned a dull dead looking white, with great banks of dark mist enveloping their base, began in little specks here and therel to glisten with a bright white light, that gradu ally deepened into gold and played about (Ln

cleft and rock, till at last the beautiful morning broke over the sombre hills of the Peninsula. And then what a changel All over the ground, in innumerable and many tangled lines, little threads of silver web spread out in all directions, beautiful and brittle as fairy workmanship might be; long lines of gulls came flapping overhead from seaward, seeking inland feeding ground; hundreds of little snipe-like birds went whirling by us with lightning speed, and as we neared the margin , of the water, we could see vast Hocks of grey ducks floating idly or splashing down and throwing up a regular spray of water as they alighted. And now the ground became too soft for wheels, and our jaded horse proclaimed the fact pretty audibly; so, having made him secure to the trap, we loaded our guns and made for the margin of the water. The boy who was with us had never shot before. I kept thinking of this when I saw his gun, as he carried it pointing towards rather larger game than ducks, and found myself shifting my position once or twice. But Jimmy had made up his mind not to kill anybody that day, and so spared us, and behaved throughout like an embryo spoirtaman. The lake is not at all the kind of place one expects to see. You have in imagination travelled with us over the, say three miles of flat sloppy lichen covered bed, and when you come to the margin of the water you find a shallow, marshy looking place, with rushes growing up through the water here aud there; now a neck of land running a long way out into the lake, and now a great bend of water, aud in places a sort of patchwork of^ land and water; the latter blown up into the low places by the last south-west wind, and left stranded as it were, to be floated off again, perhaps with another wind, or left to stagnate and evaporate. Of course this description merely applies to the edge of the lake, and perhaps only to that portion which I visited, for the lake covers a very large area, and the greater portion of it is a large unbroken sheet of water. Having located ourselves upon one of the innumerable islands before mentioned, very wet aud sloppy it must be remembered, we prepared for tbe day's sport, and what do you think we did? My friend had brought with him a piece of ■ board, cut out coffin shape; I had the seat of the trap, Jimmy a sheep skin*, we shot a gall, and set him up between us, and then lay down on our backs upon our several apparatus, having first sent our dogs, who were nothing loth, as you may imngine, to hunt up aflock of paradise ducks that were sunning themselves on the water some way off. As soon as they were on the wing, we imitated their call aa well as we could, and, as the result, some seven or eight came quietly sailing over head. Goodfellow gave them both barrels, I oue, snapping my other, worse luck ; as tbe result, down came one, who was duly instal ed beside the gull, his head stuck up with a stick to make him look as life-like as possible. This was the fate of the others, till, in due time, we had quite a little show dotted about. By-and-by, the dogs, being tired of scampering after ducks, came back, and sat down by our sides ; and a pretty nuisance they proved, for, not being properly broken, they ran out when the ducks were coming, and prevented much sport. Pometimes we got off our back boards, and had a chat, or an appeal to an ominous bottle, stuck up between our decoys, when a cry from one of " here they come" would send us scampering to our places in instant. You can't imagine what hard birds these Paradise ducks arc to kill. You see a whole handful of feathers come out of the one you fire at, but he goes quietly on his way, nothing daunted. One tough fellow fell, and the dogs brought it to us, apparently almost dead, when, after lying on the ground for a minute or two, it actually flew away before our eyes, we being too much surprised to give it another barrel. We saw a few black swans, and my friend informed me that a gentleman living near the lake had seen 41 in one mob. They were, he added, very difficult to shoot. I suppose he got that experience in Australia. We managed to bag about a dozen ducks during the day, which was a very had one, being much too fine. I am ashamed even to make a guess at the number of shots we fired ; but you must remember that the position is a very awkward one; you lie on your back till the duck is close on you, and then simply Bit up and fire. It is of no use to go there and wander about; you must simply plant yourself as we did, and if you are a tolerably good shot, and get the right sort of a "day, a party of three say, which is quite enough, may bag a score easily; but there are numbers of Cockney sportsmen who go down with guns and ammunition and dogs enough to fill a waggon, and who are not up to th*a plan of operation, and after three or four days' trial, go home disgusted, with, perhaps, a brace of birds. I have been told of a young gentleman of this kind, who came down with elastic-sided boots and goloshes, "and of another, who started here as au archi/ tect, and left the province sometime afterwards, for a neighbouring colony, having left a large circle of mourning friends behind him, who used to bring down a -petfeet selection of firearms and drinkables, and whom tradition credits with the death of three ducks. Game is there in incredible numbers. You see them in flocks of thousands. No words of mine can convey aa adequate idea of their quantity ; and in the evening the various cries of swamphens, grey ducks, paradise ducks, whistling ducks, grey teal, black teal, stilts, and others, form as ludicrous and yet imposing a chorus as can well he imagined. To see a flock of grey ducks lighting on the water on a moonlight night looks just as though they had struck a ' vast mirror and shattered it into a thousand atoms. A true sportsman, who doesn't mind a little patient waiting and a good wetting, will find thnt he can spend many a pleasant hour by Lake Ellesmere . I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and came back to my friend's hospitable roof, where a sportsman's appetite was speedily fappeased at

a right royal supper. Sitting around the fire reviewing the incidents of the day, we expressed our thankfulness that Jimmy hadnotasmuch as wounded either of us, but had killed a duck instead, and came to the conclusion that the play was well worth the candle, and that, please God, this should not he our last trip together. The sp -rfc is not exciting, as you will see, but drowning men catch at straws you know, and to get away from the world and its cares now and theu is just as essential to the possession of a sound mind in a sound body on this side of the globe as it is on yours.