Along Shining Shores 75 



is nine miles wide and eighty miles long, 

 and a curlew thinks nothing of a ten-mile 

 flight. 



Two hours before sundown, I reach the 

 ground. I've marked the spot on a marsh a 

 mile wide and seven miles long, surrounded 

 by a stretch of mud-bars and channels at 

 low tide, which melt into a beautiful silvery 

 bay at high tide. 



I go in my naphtha launch, following the 

 winding channels, from twelve to fifteen 

 miles, to get two miles as the crow flies. 

 But I must get to the marsh, put out my de- 

 coys on the exact spot on that seven-mile 

 stretch to which the birds are coming, and 

 hide before the first bird appears, and this 

 must be done before the tide rises. The 

 curlew are now scattered over the vast 

 reaches of this eighty-mile bay, eating bugs, 

 worms and sand-fiddlers on the mud-bars 

 and on the creek banks. 



I leave the launch at the head of the chan- 



