242 AMONG THE WILD FOWL 



like a salmon. Unlike the wild-fowling, which has 

 generally to be pursued at unholy hours and in the 

 most unpropitious weather, seal -shooting may be 

 enjoyed in calm and sunshine. Nor can anything 

 be much more enchanting than a leisurely boat- 

 stalk among the islands and the weed-strewn reefs 

 of some land-locked estuary, when the rosy dawn 

 is tinging the eastern hill-tops, or when the sun in 

 a radiant kaleidoscope of colours is slowly sloping 

 towards the west. But unless you have trusted 

 yourself to practised hands, or are skilled yourself in 

 the amphibious chase, what is apparently the most 

 promising day may prove a blank, so far as even 

 powder-burning is concerned. The persecuted seal 

 and he plays the mischief with the salmon stake- 

 nets is suspicious enough in all conscience, and 

 although he goes to the shore or the reef to indulge 

 in a siesta, it is as hard to catch him asleep as the pro- 

 verbial weasel. Moreover the basking seal is scarcely 

 to be discovered among the tufts of sea-ware, nor is 

 his sprawling form to be easily distinguished from 

 the grey blocks of stone strewing the shingle. 



