SALT-WATER BIRDS. 203 



settle among them. Though all the brant now 

 want to fly and seem to have a strange aversion 

 to the water, no sooner do they see the decoys 

 than down they glide toward them — the best 

 illustration of the adage, "One fool makes 

 many." 



And so flock after flock sets its wings and 

 goes hissing down to the decoys in perfect array 

 and swiftly as a swooping hawk, until the first 

 broadside is poured into the swarthy line, and 

 the second into the throbbing whirl of white and 

 black into which the orderly ranks are instantly 

 changed. 



None of the winged myriads from the North 

 defy the hunter's fire like this dark wanderer 

 from home. Sometimes two or three birds go 

 splashing below as a broadside opens upon a 

 flock, but more often only one comes down, 

 while another perhaps careens a little and lags 

 behind a few moments, then rights himself and 

 overtakes his comrades or settles slowly into the 

 far-distant water. Here comes a flock so glossy, 

 as the sun shines from their beating wings and 

 white skirts, that they seem within easy reach ; 

 yet at the roar of the guns the line merely 



