172 CATALOGUE OF BIRDS. 



White-Fronted in Case 34. Pretty well half the 

 winter season had passed before the faithful John 

 reported that the " Big Scotch Geese " were in ; so 

 one day, when driving over the bogs en route for the 

 beat I had selected for that day for Snipe and 

 Woodcock, I came across five or six of these birds 

 feeding on the bogs some little distance away from 

 a much larger flock of White- Fronted. 



Luckily, I had my lo-bore single-barrelled gun 

 with me that day, so I got down from the car and 

 proceeded to stalk them. By the aid of peat-stacks, 

 and deep cuttings, banks, etc., I was enabled to get 

 within 100 yards or so of this little flock. Two of 

 their number were standing rather closer together 

 than the rest : I therefore took these and fired, one 

 out of which flew about 200 yards and then dropped, 

 the other John thought was wounded and therefore 

 followed a long distance after it, but was never able 

 to make anything more of it. 



In following after this other bird John completely 

 lost his reckoning of where the first fell — presumably 

 dead — and, although I was pretty confident in my 

 own mind where it had come down, I couldn't for 

 the life of me find it when I went to search. You 

 would hardly have thought it possible that such a 

 large bird could escape being seen lying on an open 

 bog, yet so it was. We had almost given it up in 

 despair having been searching for about half an hour, 

 when all at once I stumbled across the bird lying 

 between two tussocks of what is termed in Ireland 

 " broken bog " ; these tussocks are sometimes as 



