nd it home to figure in a
little boy's collection far away in Kent.

I have seen very good blue duck shooting on the Waimakiriri river, but
50 per cent. of the birds were lost for want of a retriever bold enough
to face that formidable river. Wide as was the beautiful reach, on whose
shore the sportsmen stood, and calmly as the deep stream seemed to glide
beneath its high banks, the wounded birds, flying low on the water,
had hardly dropped when they disappeared, sucked beneath by the strong
current, and whirled past us in less time than it takes one to write a
line. We had retrievers with us who would face the waves of an inland
lake during a nor'-wester,--which is giving a dog very high praise
indeed; but there was no canine Bayard at hand to brave those
treacherous depths, and bring out our game, so the sport soon ceased;
for what was the good of shooting the beautiful, harmless creatures when
we could not make use of them as food?

I often accompanied F---- on his eel-fishing expeditions, but more for
the sake of companionship than from any amusement I found in the sport.
I may here confess frankly that I cannot understand anyone being an
inveterate eel-fisher, for of all monotonous pursuits, it is the most
self-repeating in its forms. Even the first time I went out I found it
delightful only in anticipation; and this is the one midnight excursion
which I shall attempt to re-produce for you.

It had been a broiling midsummer day, too hot to sit in the verandah,
too hot to stroll about the garden, or go for a ride, or do anything
in fact, except bask like a lizard in the warm air. New Zealand summer
weather, however high the thermometer, is quite different from either
tropical or English heat. It is intensely hot in the sun, but always
cool in the shade. I never heard of an instance of sun-stroke from
exposure to the mid-day sun, for there always was a light air--often
scarcely perceptible until you were well out in the open,--to temper the
fierce vertical rays. It sometimes happened that I found myself obliged,
either for business or pleasure, to take a long ride in the middle of a
summer's day, and my invariable reflection used to be, "It is not nearly
so hot out of doors as one fancies it would be." Then there is none of
the stuffiness so often an accompaniment to our brief summers, bringing
lassitude and debility in its train. The only disadvantage of an
unusually hot season with us was, that our already embrow