JEMMY DUCKS, THE FOWLER.

BY JOHN MILLS, ESQ.,

Author of "The Old English Gentleman; or, the Fields and the Woods."

THE Coast between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight affords those hardy individuals, who supply our markets with wild ducks, ample opportunities for their dangerous and, too often, unprofitable occupation. At ebbtide,' vast muddy flats, covered with green weed, are the resorts of immense flocks of sea-fowl, who come to graze, in all their multitudes, upon the savannahs of the shore; and in the dark, cold, cheerless winter night, he who, in summer, plies the overflowed shores with the line and net, runs up in his boat among the little creeks, which the tide leaves in the mud-lands, and tries to steal upon his wary prey.

Within a short distance of one of these extensive flats an old man lived, who had acquired the title of "Jemmy Ducks," from his singular passion in the pursuit of wildfowl. The night could neither be too cold, dark, nor stormy for him, so long as there was a chance of success. When others, who had not seen half the winter snows that he had, peeped from their partly-opened cottage doors, and, feeling the briny spray drifted like stinging shot upon the keen blast, crept back to the cheerful hearth again, glowing with the blazing faggot; Jemmy Ducks would swing his long, rusty gun over his shoulder, and sally forth with as much pleasure as a gay-winged butterfly in the young summer's sun.