CONTRASTS IN WILDFOWLING 415 



addition to these, perfect hosts of dunlin and small waders 

 covered the mud as it dried, and the volume of tiny voices 

 came rolling- across the waste in a sea of undulating- sounds. 

 The rest of the day was, for lack of better game, devoted 

 to the godwits, knots, and grey plover, but with only 

 meagre results : for on the dead-level fiats of mud and sand 

 it seldom happens that the bulk of the waders are congre- 

 gated within shot of water sufficiently deep to float a 

 punt. Indeed, even the lightest gunning-punt is, in such 

 places, but ill-adapted for killing any great quantities 

 of this sort of sea-game, and I have rarely succeeded in 

 making a satisfactory shot at godwits in winter with the 

 punt-gun, nor heard of others doing so. At low water in 

 the evening we took a cruise round the deep-water channels 

 or "guts " to look for divers, which at this time of the tide 

 are confined thereto : but these birds were conspicuous by 

 their absence. We found nothing but a few mergansers 

 and a single golden-eye — both these always inaccessible to 

 a punt. Not another diving-duck, or even a grebe, was to 

 be seen ; and of the Colymbi, a couple of red-throats and one 

 great northern diver were all I observed during the three 

 days. The latter was on the open coast, unconcernedly 

 feeding amidst a boiling surf that was breaking outside a 

 reef of basaltic rocks. On seeing us he dived, reappearing 

 a good quarter-mile to seaward. 



The next day was again a blank. A whole gale from 

 the south-east forbade any idea of going afloat. At the 

 morning- flight I did manage to drop a mallard at the 

 harbour entrance, but even this solitary spoil I was not 

 destined to get : for, with the predatory instinct of his 

 tribe, a fisherman-gunner, who had taken up a position 

 behind me with his dog, quietly retrieved the duck as it 

 drifted ashore, and decamped — a bit of by-play I did not 



