REMARKABLE SELF-SACRIFICE.
Now that Parliament stands prorogued, and the game of all parties consists of partridges and grouse, the journals naturally supply the place of political news with wonderful shots, and other marvellous items of sporting intelligence: as, for instance, the following paragraph which the Morning Post quotes from the North British Daily Mail:—
"New Mode of Catching Wild Duck.—A farmer in Bute, some time ago, having sown his crop, set up a couple of harrows in a field to dry, back to back, i.e. with the iron spikes outward. On making a round of his field shortly afterwards, to his astonishment he found a wild duck spitted on one of his harrows. Whether the creature in its flight in the dark had encountered the spike of the harrow, or been dashed against it by a gust of wind, no one can tell; but the truth of the story may be relied upon, as our informant, the farmer himself, is a most respectable man, and an elder of the Church."
Both respectable men and elders of the Church are capable now and then of indulging in a little toxophilite recreation; archery: shooting with the old English weapon of Robin Hood. The elder sometimes comes, or becomes, the ancient of the Church militant or old soldier, over us. The above narrative may, perhaps, be regarded as a shaft of waggery aimed at the bull's eye of faith. A correspondent, however, who is farther North than even the North British Daily Mail, assures us that it tells the truth, though not the whole truth. That a bird was spitted on one of the harrows in the manner described, is a positive fact. But the additional circumstance should have been mentioned, that a couch-fire having been made between the harrows, for the twofold purpose of burning the weeds, and drying the implements the more effectually, the creature was found not only spitted but roasted. It further remains to be stated, that the bird which was so silly as to spit itself, or get spitted, in its blundering flight, was not a duck, but a goose; which thus became its own cook. Last of all the coincidence deserves to be recorded, that the feathered simpleton, which, previously to the stupid act, had just been feeding, probably in an adjoining garden, was discovered, with some presentiment of its destiny, to have stuffed itself with sage and onions.