332 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



members. During this midday interlude they are very 

 wide-awake, and in open weather so utterly inaccessible, 

 that a whole season may go by without a single satis- 

 factory shot being obtained, even where punt-gunners 

 are numerous and geese thousands strong. Times with- 

 out number one may "set" to them, but ere one's 

 eye can clearly distinguish their thin black line from the 

 flat and featureless wastes — they are up! The distance 

 at which these keen-eyed birds can discern so small and 

 insignificant an object as a gunning-punt "end-on," is 

 truly amazing. 



Towards evening the geese recommence feeding ; and 

 so intensely eager are they about sunset to utilise the few 

 remaining minutes, that they then offer perhaps a chance 

 to get within shot. The fortunes of a long blank day 

 have been completely altered, and hours of fruitless toil 

 rewarded by a splendid shot the last thing at dusk. 



It is, however, in the hardest weather that the brents 

 afford right royal sport to those who have then the endur- 

 ance to follow them. When between tides the oozes 

 and salt-grasses are congealed in the iron grip of the frost, 

 the geese are unable to get a bite during the ebb, and, as 

 the tide flows over the mud, the quantities of drift ice 

 which have been formed in shallow pools or in the 

 stretches of "blown water," driving to and fro in the 

 tide - currents, effectually interrupts their feed, and 

 makes them less alive than usual to external dangers. 

 After a week or two of such weather, one begins 

 to find the punt drawing nearer in upon them, and, 

 at the short and deadly ranges which are then (and then 

 only) attainable, one reaps some reward for perhaps years 

 of mild seasons, blank days, and numberless failures. 



In approaching geese (of any kind), as they do not rise 



