le, blinked.... Apparently he attached no
little significance to his words, and to increase their value tried to
pronounce them with deliberation and a certain solemnity. The expression
of his face had the sharpness and staidness of old age, and the fact
that his nose had a saddle-shaped depression across the middle and his
nostrils turned upwards gave him a sly and sarcastic look.

"No, I believe I haven't," he said. "Our huntsman Eryomka w as saying
that on Elijah's Day he started one covey near Pustoshye, but I dare say
he was lying. There are very few birds."

"Yes, brother, very few.... Very few everywhere! The shooting here,
if one is to look at it with common sense, is good for nothing and not
worth having. There is no game at all, and what there is is not worth
dirtying your hands over--it is not full-grown. It is such poor stuff
that one is ashamed to look at it."

Meliton gave a laugh and waved his hands.

"Things happen so queerly in this world that it is simply laughable and
nothing else. Birds nowadays have become so unaccountable: they sit late
on their eggs, and there are some, I declare, that have not hatched them
by St. Peter's Day!"

"It's all going the same," said the shepherd, turning his face upwards.
"There was little game last year, this year there are fewer birds still,
and in another five years, mark my words, there will be none at all. As
far as I can see there will soon be not only no game, but no birds at
all."

"Yes," Meliton assented, after a moment's thought. "That's true."

The shepherd gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

"It's a wonder," he said, "what has become of them all! I remember
twenty years ago there used to be geese here, and cranes and ducks and
grouse--clouds and clouds of them! The gentry used to meet together
for shooting, and one heard nothing but pouf-pouf-pouf! pouf-pouf-pouf!
There was no end to the woodcocks, the snipe, and the little teals,
and the water-snipe were as common as starlings, or let us say
sparrows--lots and lots of them! And what has become of them all? We
don't even see the birds of prey. The eagles, the hawks, and the owls
have all gone.... There are fewer of every sort of wild beast, too.
Nowadays, brother, even the wolf and the fox have grown rare, let alone
the bear or the otter. And you know in old days there were even elks!
For forty years I have been observing the works of God from year to
year, and it is my opinion that everything