50 The Field Naturalist' s Quarterly Feb. 



they will cling to the very last piece of open water, some- 

 times sitting at the edge of it until the tail feathers are 

 frozen to the encroaching ice. I have, in fact, shot some 

 which were thus curtailed in rising, the birds being other- 

 wise in excellent condition. So loth were they to leave the 

 " wake " on the day just described that our forerunner, who 

 was unable to approach within a hundred yards or so of 

 where the majority of coots were congregated, took off his 

 coat and hoisted it flag-like upon the top of his quant, and 

 halloed in vain to frighten up the whole assembly. The 

 most cunning and crafty refused to stir. Coots will not, 

 when they rise, leave the water, whether it be open or 

 frozen, but fly straight back over it and alight again at 

 the other end, rather than go inland or make a circuit round 

 the shore. Taking advantage of this habit, supposing that 

 there is a bunch of coots at the south end of the broad, the 

 gunners approach them from the north, with their boats 

 lined up in crescent formation some 40 or 60 yards apart, 

 according to the number of craft. This movement drives 

 the coots towards the land, and this they refuse to face, the 

 result being that the birds fly back over the heads of the 

 gunners, thus affording capital rocketing and difficult shots. 

 Although their pace may not equal that of the lordly pheas- 

 ant, their feathers and down are more dense and their skin 

 far more tough. Moreover, the rapid vibration of their 

 short and rounded wings is very deceptive, and they appear 

 to be moving far more rapidly than is actually the case. 

 The shooting is all done sitting still, and the cross seat of 

 a boat is somewhat in the way of the legs whilst swinging 

 round for a side or cross shot ; hence the introduction of the 

 revolving seat, like a music-stool, instead of the straight 

 plank. Then, again, the boat is never absolutely still, and 

 to try and resist the motion of the boat whilst shooting is as 

 fatal to the aim as is the effort to counteract the vibration 

 of a train to caligraphy. Success in both performances is a 

 matter of time, patience, and practice. 



Coots are expert divers, and when wounded always make 

 for the reed-beds, just as all pricked wildfowl hug the shore. 

 It takes a good retriever to find a winged Frenchman in a 

 ten-acre turnip field, but the dog has yet to be bred which 



