NETTING BIRDS ON THE WASH. 191 



which are driven into the mud. The poles are about 

 ninety yards apart, so that many nets are several hundreds 

 of yards in length. Great judgment is required in 

 setting the nets to face the direction in which birds may 

 be expected, and the owners are constantly changing 

 their position with the changes of the wind and the 

 phases of the moon. Bird-netting is a precarious avoca- 

 tion, and the amount of success attending it is ever 

 fluctuating. When the moon is at the full the birds can 

 see the nets and few are caught ; and during mild open 

 weather the various species of wild fowl keep well out to 

 sea. Rough stormy weather and the first few nights of 

 the new moon are the best times for birds, and then the 

 nets are often full of captures of many different species. 



During the brief period when birds are plentiful, 

 there is something extremely exciting about bird- 

 netting. As each morning comes we visit the nets 

 with keen expectation, never knowing what the night 

 may have brought us in the way of rare birds. Let us 

 take a morning round with Stiff the coastguard. He 

 knows the birds of the coast and their ways, and will be 

 able to initiate us in many of the mysteries of netting. 

 We must be off at the very earliest streak of dawn, or 

 the Hooded Crows will be at the nets before us and 

 make their breakfasts of the poor helpless captives. 



Biting cold is the breeze on this November morning 

 as we hasten along over the sea banks to the wastes of 



