12 SEA-FOWL SHOOTING IN 



offers a fair prospect of a successful shot. Should 

 he secure the coveted object of pursuit, it is not 

 alone its rarity or beauty which makes his heart 

 to dance like his little shallop over the waves, but 

 the associations sure to cling to it in future and 

 far distant years. To him each of those sea-birds 

 that grace his museum suggests its own wild tale 

 of grandeur or beauty. The beetling precipice, 

 the gleaming, tranquil sea, the jutting headland, 

 or booming, boundless old ocean, rise to his mind's 

 eye, fresh and glorious, even by a passing glance 

 at that little denizen of the deep. 



The North Berwick fisherman had written to 

 say that eiders were plentiful, and had begun to 

 seek the nesting islands in the Firth. Accom- 

 panied by my eldest son, and armed with. our 

 shoulder duck-guns, we were next morning early 

 afloat for a cruise in search of them. The day 

 was bright, but the breeze perhaps rather too 

 fresh to give us full advantage in manoeuvring 

 wild fowl. We soon sighted several flocks of 

 snowy drakes with their russet partners ; but from 

 bearing too eagerly down upon them, raised them 

 all out of reach of even a cross-shot. Like all 



