io6 IN THE HAUNTS OF 



keeping together during thick and foggy weather, the conspicuous 

 white markings fore and aft serving as useful recognition colours, 

 supplementing vocal cries. John is good at yarns. I was wont 

 to season his tall stories of carnage with several grains of salt, 

 until the following experience befell me the most impressive scene 

 of bird life I ever witnessed. I never afterwards doubted John's 

 stories of marvellous bags in days when the birds, wing-weary with 

 some biting merciless snowstorm, put aside all caution and came 

 on the decoys by battalions. 



It was the month of November ; John and I got out on the 

 bay when a driving snowstorm came on, which turned to sleet and 

 hail. The night had been so cold that we had to break sheet ice 

 for 200 yards from shore to make the channel. It is needless to 

 say we had the bay to ourselves. It was too rough to launch 

 the sink box, so we dug a hole in the apex of a sand-pit and concealed 

 the box in the sand. I had taken out sixty cartridges twenty were, 

 unfortunately, ruined by the wet. With the other forty I had shot 

 thirty birds. Then commenced a scene the like of which I never 

 expect to see again. The cruel storm seemed to drive away from 

 the birds all sense of fear. They almost brushed my face with 

 their wings. Then on either hand they commenced to settle. 

 Company after company arrived, like some routed army rallying. 

 Presently two vast armies of mixed geese and brant occupied 

 sandpits to the right and left. They were cowed by the awful storm, 

 and mostly silent, but at times a raucous clamour went through 

 the whole vast host. The black necks of the Canada geese, with 

 the white bar across the head, the smaller white ringed necks of 

 the brant were uplifted in serried ranks, and their bead-like eyes 

 peered out with pathetic resignation into the strife of the wind 

 and waters and the pelting of the pitiless hail. For an hour I 

 watched this wonderful spectacle. Then almost benumbed with 

 the cold and wet we poled the canoe homewards among the wearied 

 birds that were too listless to get out of our way. 



While we have been idly spinning yarns beside the crackling 

 flames, and pulling at our briar-roots, the tide has been busily pour- 

 ing out the winding channels until the broad bay at last seems emptied 

 and pumped out dry. Under the direct rays of the sun, rows of 

 geese and brant, among the bronzed weeds, indulge in contented 

 conversational tones, while an astonishing mirage causes them to 

 loom and glisten like ranks of soldiers in shining armour. It is of 

 no use to expect shots under such conditions. The gulls alone 

 keep poised on the wing, their day-long flight evidently causing no 

 fatigue, as if they floated on an upward air current. Otherwise 

 all nature is steeped in the languor of an afternoon siesta. Crickets 



