THE GAME-DUCKS 301 



such circumstances, one sometimes obtains chances to 

 experiment on a variety of fowl and to compare their 

 relative degrees of wariness. Thus we perhaps first try 

 our skill on a small lot of grey-geese, resting close to the 

 wash of the sea. No! They won't have it at all. They 

 rise five gun-shots away ; then some sheld-ducks fix the 

 range of safety (in their ideas) at three. Even the spread- 

 eagled cormorants utterly decline negotiation, and as for 

 the waders, they are perhaps the "shiftiest" of all. 

 Incidentally I may remark that the aggregations of 

 these latter birds, which at flood-tide assemble on the 

 sand - bars, are sometimes actually marvellous. The 

 whole interior expanse of mud-flat and ooze being then 

 submerged, the wading-birds are driven out to the only 

 refuge which remains uncovered — namely, the now com- 

 paratively limited area of the sand-bar. At full-sea this 

 resort is thronged, aye, "carpeted," with such multitudes 

 of "hen-footed fowl," as I must decline attempting to 

 describe ! To convey an adequate idea of their number 

 would necessitate inadmissible superlatives, while any 

 estimate would be hopeless. If legislators who premised 

 an Act of Parliament with the preamble that wildfowl 

 are decreasing in the British Islands, could see some of 

 these spectacles that fall to the everyday lot of the 

 punt-gunner, they might wonder where they got that 

 information ; but such an event is scarcely likely to occur. 

 Should the fowler, however, attempt to "set up" to 

 these whistling, chattering hordes in a gunning-punt — 

 let your boat be the lowest, the lightest, and the fastest 

 ever launched, and her occupants past masters of their 

 craft — they will utterly fail. The sea-pyots, plovers, and 

 such-like simple birds (if alone) will, no doubt, admit of 

 approach ; but as for the rest, the curlews, godwits, knots 



