A CREEK OF THE KONKAN. 23 



burning in a little box full of sand. There is no awning, it would be 

 much in the way, and afloat the direct rays of the sun are weakened 

 by tho rising though invisible vapour, and less dangerous than 

 those reflected from tho surface, which seem to burn through the 

 eye into the brain. Against these wo are armed with smoky 

 spectacles, but don't want them so early in the morning, for our 

 voyage is Westward Ho ! 



As we push slowly down against the flood, we meet a shoal of grey 

 mullet playing and jumping, and the boys quarrel as to whether or 

 no they are salmon-trout, but are told that there are no trout 

 in India, and to keep their eyes open and mouth shut. Presently 

 a crack opens in the edge of our saucer, and we head south-west- 

 ward through a wooded gorge, the bottom of which, not half a 

 mile wide, is chiefly occupied by the creek and its mangrove 

 swamps. The neap-tide has failed to cover a little sandy islet, 

 and on it a dozen grey and white birds, rather larger than snipe, sit 

 still and close together. As we come up, they fidget and rise, and 

 in an instant the gunner on that side lets fly at them. A couple fall 

 nearly ahead of the boat ; we steer for one and pick it up with a 

 landing net, and a man jumps over board and retrieves the other. 

 Tho griffin who has not shot them, rebukes his fellow griff for 

 shooting " snippets," who retorts that they are just as hard to 

 shoot as "snipe" and "A vis sapidissima in patina." 



He has not much Latin, this boy ; the other has none, but 

 refuses to consider himself shut up, and appeals to the quarterdeck. 

 Wo find that one bird is a red shank and the other a green shank. 

 Both are large sandpipers of the genus Totanus, and have been 

 waiting on the bank for the ebb. Most shore birds, and especially 

 the sandpipers and dwarf plovers, have this habit, feeding alone 

 or in small and scattered flocks on the foreshore, and packing for 

 repose at high water. Both of our birds are good for the pot, as 

 implied in their slayer's Latin tag. 



As wo pass on, we find on similar banks several small flocks of 

 curlews, and what our men call young curlews, and so they look, 

 but they rise with a single sharp note, often and quickly repeated, 

 w r hich marks them for whimbrel, a smaller bird and more delicate 

 eating. The tide is now with us, and the water has widened and 

 deepened so we get in the oars and hosit the sails to the morning 

 land wind, keeping on the outside curve of the stream, where the 

 water is deepest and we can steer pretty close to the mangroves. 



