72 By Mountain^ Lake, and Plain 



individual birds. There are pintail, to my mind 

 the elite of all wildfowl, flying highest as usual ; 

 pochards and other ducks below them, with the 

 interstices filled up as it were with teal, an 

 embarras de richesse that is positively bewilder- 

 ing. In a few seconds the great flight is over. 

 There is a rearguard, higher but, thank goodness, 

 more scattered, and these afford a few more sport- 

 ing chances. The tutins come up and the pick up 

 begins. It seems paltry for the number of cart- 

 ridges that have been fired ! Of course, among 

 these dense reeds a duck that is not killed dead 

 is lost. On the Hokra jhil in Kashmir, where the 

 shooting is managed in a similar way, the manjhis, 

 who take the part of the sayads in Seistan, 

 reserve for themselves a portion of the bag by 

 tethering some of the cripples to reeds below the 

 surface, to be picked up subsequently, and I rather 

 suspected these people had some similar dodge. 



We next try a drive in the opposite direction, 

 this time preceded by a long wait, as the tutincliis 

 have a long journey round. There is plenty of 

 life to watch in the meantime : a fishing harrier 

 swooping and hovering, moor-hens swimming and 

 diving among the reeds, warblers and other small 

 birds busy in their feathered tops. Though the 

 air is cool, a company of midges prevents us 

 from forgetting we are still in Seistan. Let us 



