SEAFOWL SHOOTING SKETCHES. 75 



I shot four parrots and four miners, and then sport ceased. 

 I had a great desire to get one of the mag-pies, but they were 

 too wary for me. At last I stood still, and after a while I ob- 

 served a mag-pie drop behind a log and begin feeding. As soon 

 as it was properly settled I crept on hands and knees to another 

 log which lay within range of the first one, and there I squatted 

 until the unsuspecting magpie stepped out from its cover. I was 

 ready with the gun barrels poking through some twigs, and I 

 instantly laid the bird flat. Its stuffed skin, along- with some 

 of the parrots, I brought home and presented to a much-respected 

 clerical friend. 



All the birds I killed at this place were shot sitting-. The 

 trees ars so high that in their flight from one to another the 

 birds are almost perpendicular over your head, and again, though 

 the trunks are wide apart, yet the foliage of one tree frequently 

 touches its neighbours. I do not remember to have had one 

 fair chance for a flying shot; 



The following morning we got up early, breakfasted with one 

 of our acquaintance in his tent, and at 7 30 took the coach to 

 Sandhurst, where we arrived, after being very much tormented 

 by mosquitoes, at 2 30. We managed to catch the three o'clock 

 train, and arrived again in Melbourne at eight o'clock the same 

 evening. 



I left Williamstown on the 4th December, 1869, on the ship 

 " Loch Awe," of Glasgow, via Cape Horn, arriving in London 

 on the loth April, 1870. Head winds and calms caused the long 

 voyage. 



