WILDFOWLING IN MILD WEATHER. 255 



inaccessible to a punt. Not another Diving-cluck, 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 made any idea of going afloat quite out of the 

 question. 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 

 observe at the time, it being still dark. Eventually I 

 secured a Heron and a couple of Curlews in return for two 

 bitterly cold hours' lying out on the weed-covered rocks. In 

 spite of the heavy sea that was running outside, the great 

 bulk of the geese left the harbour, as usual, at dusk. They 

 went to sea in a single body, and at least one hundred yards 

 high, though the gale blew dead against them. Only one 

 small lot of about two score remained inside sitting in the 

 "deep," where no punt could approach them. 



An hour before daybreak on my third and last day again 

 found us in our former position at the edge of the mud-flats. 

 But once more Nature persisted in frowning on our en- 

 deavours. Our first attempt she had frustrated by a fog ; 

 with a storm our second. No such adventitious phenomena 

 were needed to be invoked by her to thwart our hopes this 

 morning. The obstacle now presented was simply the daily 

 variation in the tide. Before us, on the mud, we made out 

 two big packs of Wigeon, all unsuspectingly feeding under 

 the feeble rays of the waning moon. In less than an hour 

 they would, under the friendly shelter of darkness, have 

 been in our power. Had we now but the conditions of tide 

 which prevailed yesterday, we should have been nearly sure 

 of a heavy shot ; but to-day we knew full well that, before 

 those sixty minutes had run their course, the treacherous 



