WILDFOWLING AFLOAT 87 



capacity, and, as M. declared he knew not how to boil an 

 egg, the culinary department aboard the Seamew has for 

 a good many years been managed by myself. Thanks 

 to the excellent little stove with which the fo'c'stle of 

 the yawl is furnished, my occupation, in spite of the 

 pitching of the boat, was soon finished, and upon going 

 into the well to bid my companion " eat, drink, and be 

 merry," I discovered we were quite clear of the Swale and 

 racing through the heavy seas towards the Mouse. 



" Have you sighted any fowl ? " was my first inquiry 

 of M., who, with the end of the tiller jammed into the 

 small of his back, was sweeping the water with a pair of 

 Ross prisms. " Not a feather beyond a few scoters and 

 an odd loon or two," replied Jack. " But what kind of 

 fowl are those paddling in the little bay beyond the 

 lightship ? " asked he, pointing in the direction of a 

 number of dark spots, which, viewed from the well of 

 the yawl, bobbed up and down on the tide. I ventured 

 to suggest that the birds were a flock of cob -gulls, but 

 scarcely were the words uttered than the skipper, who 

 from the bows had been watching the fowl through a 

 pair of battered binoculars, cried, " Hinter be a tidy 

 paddlin' o' mallard ! " The keen-sighted old gunner 

 spoke truly. It was a paddling of common wild duck 

 that had puzzled M. and myself so confoundedly. The 

 company, consisting of between forty and fifty head, 

 was resting in a small bay on the edge of Foulness sands, 

 and, as far as we were able to judge, the birds were 

 " bunched " sufficiently well to warrant a " set " being 



