SECOND DAY. 21 
nest, so walked up to the steep crumbling bank, where I 
heard a splashing in the water, and, quickly turning round, 
saw a Cormorant flying out just below me. I gave it both 
barrels, but the shot, being rather too light for its thick green 
mail of feathers, was not immediately fatal, and not until it 
had reached the middle of the stream did the hard-hit bird 
take a sweep round, and then fall like a stone into the water, 
making it spurt wp, and was forthwith borne down stream by 
the light wavelets, in quite a poetic fashion. I now hastened 
to join my brother-in-law, and we rowed back in the boat 
together, the other sportsmen following along the footpath 
more slowly. 
While waiting for them we amused ourselves by frightening 
the Rooks and Hooded Crows out of their nests, and by killing 
a specimen of each species, and on their arrival loaded the 
boat with our spoil, and took leave of the exceedingly kind 
proprietor of the island. 
We then pushed off from the bank, and soon gained the 
deck of our steamer. The anchor was weighed, and we set 
off again down stream on our way to fresh achievements. 
Thanks to the kindly courtesy of Count Zichy, our first 
shooting excursion had turned out a success, for we had made 
a pretty good bag, and were now able to describe a beautiful 
heronry, and a colony of Cormorants, among the scenes of 
our journey. 
At first we followed the bank of the island, the herons 
circling high above the steamer, seemingly desirous of 
satisfying themselves that the troublesome strangers had 
really quitted their domains. 
Soon after leaving Adony behind us, we passed some very 
small thickly-wooded islands, then the “auen” vanished from 
both sides of the river, and another monotonous district lay 
spread before us. High crumbling banks alternating with 
low flat shores, where the river lost itself as it were in mea- 
