MIDNIGHT ON THE OOZES 325 



rather long- shot just before dawn increased the spoils of 

 the night by two more pair of wig-eon. 



Now it is daylight ; but a dense sea-fog obscures the 

 sky. In semi-darkness, we can only creep ahead, feeling- 

 our way by compass and by the set of the ebb-tide. The 

 latter index is our safeguard against being- caught in some 

 ail de sac and there left stranded all the long hours till 

 released by the flood. While vainly trying to pick up our 

 landmarks, there resounds through the murk a note that 

 rejoices our hearts — it is the clang of grey-geese. Ere 

 the io-bore can be reached from beneath the fore-peak, 

 eig-ht huge fowl loom up right ahead. How wondrous 

 smart they take all in — tack and wheel! But that does 

 not disconcert — for these are old friends — and at twenty- 

 five yards there is no escape. With mighty splash, 

 ratione mentis acervi, two pink-footed geese fall plump on 

 the tide — in themselves alone a rare reward for all our 

 night's labour. 



After a few hours' turn-in, and a short cruise among the 

 geese on the afternoon tide, we again went afloat at mid- 

 night. Again the ducks were there in hosts, but the 

 conditions were changed ; the sky was overcast, the 

 moon obscured by heavy drifting clouds, and, though 

 several times close up to the coveted fowl, it was impos- 

 sible in the darkness to make out their position, and we 

 failed to obtain a shot. Once I was on the point of 

 pulling trigger, but at the nick of time a glint of moon- 

 light disclosed the fact that the dark objects ahead were 

 not ducks, but floes of drift ice, turning over, upwards and 

 edgeways, in the tide-current, and whose moving outline 

 had closely resembled a nice " bunch " of fowl. Then, after 

 eight of the coldest hours' patient effort, we returned to 

 breakfast without a feather. 



