448 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



waved in the tide-currents beneath us in swathes of 

 brightest emerald. At the mallard we had two punt- 

 shots during - the flood ; the first, at about a dozen sitting 

 scattered on the mud-edge, was a total failure. The range 

 was the deadly seventy yards, the elevation was correct ; 

 but, though the BB seemed fairly to rake their position, 

 not a single bird stayed. 1 1 was one of the mischances that 

 will occur ; so with an effort we choke despair and try again. 

 The second shot was at rather over a score swimming 

 in roughish water and at longer range : as the smoke 

 cleared we saw four mallard stretched on the sea and two 

 more fatally crippled — still far from being as satisfactory a 

 shot as it might have been. 



All the morning we had had the geese in view, some 

 busily feeding in black patches on the zostera, others 

 flying restlessly about in long gaggling skeins. The 

 winter had been so mild and open throughout, that these 

 wary fowl were far too watchful to allow the slightest 

 chance of approach, even in a punt. Now, at full tide, 

 they lined the shore in scattered companies for several 

 miles, and their white sterns were conspicuous bobbing 

 up among the dark wavelets as heads reached down to the 

 succulent sea-grasses beneath. From midday till dusk we 

 stuck to them. Every "dodge" we knew was tried; we 

 "set " to them, sailed, paddled, drifted — all in vain. Hour 

 after hour slipped fruitlessly away, and the only result 

 of our manoeuvres was that towards dusk we had their 

 scattered companies now all congregated into one solid, 

 compact phalanx of geese, perhaps a thousand strong. 

 There they sat, only half-a-mile from us, and as the sun 

 "took the hill" we commenced our last supreme effort. 

 Alas ! it was now a full quarter's ebb, and before we had 

 approached within three gunshots, we took the ground. 



