254. REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



catching them wholesale. This I did with a little 

 draf-net made for the smallest minnows, with a purse 

 to it and a stop. In the narrowest part of the ditches 

 this net was set, and while I watched it Hooper drove 

 the shrimps. The little purse has been so full that it 

 would hold no more, and I have often left it in longer 

 than necessary to watch the crabs who feed on the 

 shrimps come up at this, to them, golden opportunity, 

 and walk oif with a shrimp or two tucked up under 

 an arm, their method of carrying them. A great 

 many cormorants at times frequent the harbour and 

 sit in rows on the little islands in the shallows left by 

 the tide ; so to amuse myself and catch them, I baited 

 lines of about six feet in length, and tying them to 

 stones, with a small fish on a single hook as for an eel, 

 left them in the water. I never secured a cormorant 

 in this way, but when the tide flowed I had plenty of 

 eels. I think one or two baits were taken by cormo- 

 rants, and I know that one was. A man and a boy were 

 sitting in a boat (the man was Hooper), at the mouth 

 of the harbour, when the boy cried out suddenly, "Look 

 out ! my eye, take care ! whatever's this a coming ! " 

 Hooper looked up, and saw a great cormorant half- 

 anchored by a stone not heavy enough to hold him, 

 going up and down in air and water ; now mounting 

 high, and now dabbing down, the stone hitting the 

 water with the force of a spent cannon-ball. Luckily 

 the stone came in contact with no man's head, and 

 the cormorant cleared to sea, going straight for the 

 Needles, up and down till lost in the distance. In a 

 small stream inland, I have caught a great many 

 herons in this way, in hard weather, laying the bait, 

 a little eel or the tail only of a larger one, so that it 

 would gently play in the stream on the shallows 



