.

In winter, when the jacks came up and lay immediately under the ice,
they could be easily shot. The pellets cut a round hole through an inch
and a half of ice. The jack now basking in the pond was the more
tempting because we had often tried to wire him in vain. The difficulty
was to get him if hit. While I was deliberating a crow came flying low
down the leaze, and alighted by the pond. His object, no doubt, was a
mussel. He could not have seen me, and yet no sooner did he touch the
ground than he looked uneasily about, sprang up, and flew straight away,
as if he had smelt danger. Had he stayed he would have been shot, though
it would have spoiled my ambush: the idea of the crows picking out the
eyes of dying creatures was always peculiarly revolting to me.

If the pond was a haunt of his, it was too near the young partridges,
which were weakly that season. A kestrel is harmless compared to a crow.
Surely the translators have wrongly rendered Don Quixote's remark that
the English did not kill crows, believing that King Arthur, instead of
dying, was by enchantment turned into one, and so fearing to injure the
hero. Must he not have meant a rook? [Note: It has since been pointed out
to me that the Don may have meant a raven]

Soon afterwards something moved out of the mound into the meadow a long
distance up: it was a hare. He came slowly along beside the hedge
towards me--now stopping and looking into it as if seeking a convenient
place for a form, having doubtless been disturbed from that he had first
chosen. It was some minutes before he came within range: had I been on
the ground most likely he would have scented me, the light air going
that way; but being in, the tree the wind that passed went high over
him. For this reason a tree ambush is deadly. It was necessary to get
the line of sight clear of twigs, which check and divert shot, and to
take a steady aim; for I had no second barrel, no dog, and had to
descend the tree before running. Some leaves were blackened by the
flame: the hare simply fell back, stretched his hind legs, quivered, and
lay still. Part of the leaf of a plant was fixed in his teeth; he had
just had a nibble.

With this success I was satisfied that day; but the old oak was always a
favourite resort, even when nothing particular was in hand. From thence,
too, as a base of operations, we made expeditions varying in their
object with the season of the year.

Some distance beyond the stunted