he greatest number killed.
Boys may often be seen out at night, with long poles and nets attached
to them, catching sparrows in the trees. But my friend tells me that the
way he likes to catch them is to go into a barn at night with a lantern.
"You must hold the lantern under your coat so as to half screen the
light, and the birds will fly at the light and settle on your
shoulders." He tells me you can pick them off your clothes by the dozen.
I have never tried it, certainly, as, personally, I have no quarrel with
the sparrows. I was disappointed that the "Sparrow Club," for which a
great public meeting had to be convened, was not of a more exciting
nature. One was led to believe by the importance of the printed postcard
that some good old English custom was about to be revived.

A farmer has just brought me in a peregrine falcon that he shot this
morning. He is of course very proud of the achievement. It is useless to
argue with him on the question of preserving birds that are becoming
scarce in England. He considers that a _rara avis_ such as this, which
is "here to-day and gone to-morrow," is a prize which does not often
fall to the lot of the gunner; it must be bagged at all hazards. Nor is
it easy to answer the argument which he seldom fails to put forth, that
if he doesn't shoot it, somebody else will.

Talking of rare birds, I shall never forget seeing a wild swan come
sailing up the Coln during a very hard frost two years ago. Two of us
were out after wild duck, and it was a grand sight to watch this
magnificent bird winging his way rapidly up stream at a height of about
fifty yards. It is rare indeed to see them in these parts, though the
vicar of Bibury tells me that seven wild swans were once seen on the
Coln near that village; but this was some years ago. On the same
authority I learn that a Solan goose, or gannet, has been known to visit
this stream. Tom Peregrine shot one a few years back; also a puffin, a
bird with a parrot-like beak and of the auk tribe. Wild geese frequently
pass over us, following the course of the stream.

On a bright, warm day in October, such a day as we usually have a score
or more of in the course of our much-abused English autumn, it is
pleasant to take one's gun and, leaving behind the quiet, peaceful
valley and the old-world houses of the Cotswold hamlet, to ascend the
hill and seek the great, rolling downs, a couple of miles away from any
sign of human habitation. You may ge