314 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



him a second chance, if he can help it. He will dive under 

 the blue with eagerness, and go forty yards under water at 

 a rapid stroke, for he is a strong paddler, as strong as the 

 punt-gunner who is after him. Indeed, old gunners say he 

 is the strongest bird, with his feet, afloat. Up he comes, 

 sparkling like a water-flower in the sun. But he will not 

 rise on the wing — he knows too much for that — and away 

 goes the excited gunner sculling after him ; but down he 

 goes again, and so on for hours he will carry on the game 

 of hide and seek, for he does not fear the cold. And yet 

 the weakened gunner follows, his heart full of hope, for he 

 knows whichever way the bird puts his head when he dives, 

 that is his course. Shot after shot is wasted — the shot 

 merely dimpling the hard blue waters of the lagoon — until 

 at last, tired, perchance, of the chase, out of mere sport the 

 creature takes to flight, and escapes from the tired and excited 

 gunner, who trembles as he fires his old rusty fowling-piece, 

 and the harmless shot whizzes through the air, falling like 

 lead upon the lagoon further ahead, and the big speckled bird, 

 with a groan, flies over the dunes out to sea, where gunners 

 are not. 



But the most artful gunners work differently ; and one who 

 has shot many tells me he can always make sure of " my 

 gentleman " by going down to leeward — before the wind — 

 and suddenly startling him, when he will probably take to 

 the wing, and then he falls an easy prey to the old ten-bore, 

 and is taken home to make his wife a muff. 



But this wild sea-viking does not stay with us long — the 

 softer air of April does not seem to suit his hard, savage nature 

 — and he rarely comes in from his home, the sea, until fierce 

 March returns again on the revolving wheel of the seasons, 

 and again the gunners are alert to muff him ; and so the 

 sport is kept up — dog robbing dog, poacher killing poacher. 



