I9O SHOOTING NEAR TANGIERS. 



bird, very scarce in our island home, the water rail. 

 If it should be deemed desirable to spend another 

 day in this locality, devote a portion of your time 

 to hunting the margin of the low, brush-covered 

 hills across the meadow. There partridges are 

 very abundant, but every point will not produce a 

 bird, for among the scrub will be found numerous 

 tortoises, and all you can do will not prevent the 

 very best broken setters or pointers " standing " them. 

 On the next march, in three or four miles, the sports- 

 man will find himself on the edge of a fordable river, 

 about seventy yards wide. If there be two guns, by 

 stationing them three-quarters of a mile apart, and 

 sending a couple of your people to rove up and 

 down the intermediate banks, good returns for some 

 hours' delay can be obtained. From the river, the 

 road leads through excellent but comparatively rough 

 ground, more or less wooded, and in places swampy. 

 Game of the species previously mentioned can be 

 obtained here also, and not unfrequently with the 

 welcome addition of several woodcock and a few 

 snipe. 



By this time " the Laguna " is reached, a sheet of 

 water covering two hundred or more acres. It is 

 surrounded by stunted trees, none of which grow 

 upon the wet, low-lying land that surrounds it. This 

 intervening space will be found literally ploughed up 

 by wild hogs, while snipe will flush from almost every 

 wallowing place. 



There are two more of these lagunas, separated 

 from each other by a short distance only. Their 

 characteristics are identical, and good flight shooting 

 can be enjoyed between them. All these sheets of 

 water are frequented by mallard and teal, as well as 

 coots and water hens. In fact, with an ordinary 

 amount of labour each gun should be able to account 

 for five-and-twenty couple of game in the day, the 



