SHELDRAKES MALLARDS HARES. 195 



teaches them exactly when to leave the hills for the sands as 

 soon as the sea has receded sufficiently; and yet their 

 principal resting-place is fully five miles inland. 



I have observed the same instinct in the female sheldrakes 

 when sitting on their eggs. Although several feet under- 

 ground they know to a moment when the tide has sufficiently 

 ebbed, and then, and only then, do they leave their nest to 

 snatch a hasty meal on the cockles, &c., which they find on 

 the sands. 



The frost and snow send all the mallards down from the 

 hill lakes to the bay. I shot a bird exactly answering to 

 Bewick's description of the dun diver, excepting that it was 

 much smaller. Bewick describes his bird as twenty-seven 

 inches in length. This was only twenty inches. It was 

 apparently quite full grown. I shot it whilst it was fishing 

 in a small stream, and the bird had already swallowed 

 twenty-five sticklebacks and one small eel. Its bright red 

 bill is well adapted to hold any fish, however slippery, being 

 supplied with the sharp teeth sloping inwards which are 

 peculiar to birds of this class. 



Hares have a particular fancy for sitting near houses, 

 undeterred by the noise of the men and dogs who may in- 

 habit them. When found sitting, a hare sometimes seems 

 fascinated in an extraordinary manner by the eye of a person 

 looking at her. As long as you keep your eye fixed on that 

 of the hare, and approach her from the front, she appears 

 afraid to move, and, indeed, will sometimes allow herself to 

 be taken up by the hand. A hare, when dogs are near her, 

 is particularly unwilling to start from her form. In cover- 

 shooting many of the old and experienced hares steal off 

 quietly the moment they hear the sound of dogs or beaters 

 at one end of the wood ; and thus their quick senses of hear- 

 ing and smelling enable them to escape the guns, however 

 numerous and however well placed. Shooters in wood pay 

 too little attention to the direction of the wind. All small 

 game, like deer, are most unwilling to face an enemy standing 

 to windward of them ; but keepers either expect, or pretend 

 to expect, that game will always go exactly ahead of the 

 beaters, though the least observation ought to have taught 

 them the contrary ; for when once running game have dis- 

 covered the scent of an enemy, they will never go in that 

 direction, but will make their way back in spite of all the 

 noise and exertions of the beaters. 



