SHORE SHOOTING FROM A BOAT. 1 
bag, and that was in a sailing boat drifting down before the gentlest of 
zephyrs, without the slighest expectation of a shot. At two hundred yards 
the ever wakeful fisher looked up, stretched a wing, and treated us to a long, 
deliberate stare. We all took it for granted that he was off; but no; by some 
unaccountable effort of avine reasoning he had persuaded himself that our 
intentions were harmless, and, calmly turning his back, devoted himself once 
more to the piscatorial art. Inch by inch we drifted on, until, seeing that 
there was a chance after all, I borrowed the boatman’s 8-bore—a weapon 
which I had always regarded with pious awe, but had never ventured to 
AT THE BAR, 
handle hitherto—and shortly afterwards letting fly with much trepidation, I 
was agreeably surprised to find my shoulder still intact, and the “ Hanser” 
lying doubled up upon the sand. That he would have let a mud-tramper come 
within range is improbable in the extreme, and his capture affords one of many 
instances of the subtle powers of self-insinuation possessed by a boat as 
opposed to a walking man. 
Not that the boat can do much towards the acquisition of a specimen if 
the man doesn’t do his share properly when the moment arrives, as I was 
made to realize very forcibly when pursuing two Great Crested Grebes in the 
following year. Again the boat surpassed all expectations, and again, when 
we least expected it, we saw that we were in for a shot. Though it was 
c 
