50 LLANDDWYN 



bird shot through any favourable gap, and the game 

 was afoot again all over the sands. I wonder if 

 anyone ever died from laughing; if so, chasing young 

 Shelducks must be a dangerous pastime. 



By the time we had finished with them (or they 

 with us), the sands for a quarter of a mile around 

 were like a battlefield, and we knew more of the 

 ways of Shelducks than is likely to find its way into 

 the sober pages of ornithology. After all, there 

 come times when one wearies of pedantic prosing 

 about the what, whence, and wherefore of living 

 beings; when one would fain get in among them, 

 and know them for themselves. Nature has become 

 an intellectual vogue; genera and species sprout in 

 the streets. But a bird is not a genus, nor an 

 animal a species. You cannot know the one by 

 examining its grinders, nor the other by determining 

 the form of its breastbone. I know it is not very 

 advanced ornithology to spend one's time careering 

 about a muddy estuary with immature Shelducks ; 

 but what will you? I believe the creatures liked it ! 

 However, let that pass. Having reverted to this 

 sad state of man, we took the birds down to the 

 channel, and no sooner had they touched the water 

 than they dived beneath it, coming up a few yards 

 out to cast back a glance of good-riddance or 

 farewell, ere swimming across to join their relatives 

 on the farther side. There the old male stood on 

 guard, while the female was occupied with the young; 

 for the male never feeds so long as there is even a 

 distant sign of danger, but mounts guard, expressing 

 his feelings from time to time by a curtseying nod. 

 I suppose he would tell the returning young ones 



