land and water liabilities. I must say I listened to him with great interest, and picked here and there a valuable hint for my own using; though the question occurs, naturally, whether the readers of the Home Journal, not being river-rustics themselves, will be as much entertained. But I shall try to be brief.
I silently pocketed a caution as to my next summer's swimming, while the talk fell upon snapping-turtles (among the dangers of the neighborhood), and Ward gave us an account of catching one. He was out in his decoy-boat after ducks, and had chanced to shoot a wild goose, that he left to float among the edges till he should have leisure to pick him up. Meantime, lying flat in his boat, and watching through the straw bulwark for the game, he observed the dead goose bobbing under occasionally. The water was clear, and, with a little closer look, he saw, that, to the broken leg of the goose, which hung down, a large snapping-turtle was roaching up, and trying to get the right hitch to pull the dead bird to the bottom. Ward quietly floated that way, stripped up his sleeve, and, with a sudden pluck, caught the snapper by the middle (out of reach of his head), and threw him into the boat. He was about the size of a chair-cushion, and made "great soup." Happy river, of course, that has such live succulents for poor folks—but, to gentlemen that swim partly under water, the risk of being nibbled at by an animal
