IMPEOMPTU SPORT ON THE VELDT 191 



eyes of our not too vigilant human retrievers by hiding 

 up in the dense reed-cover ; and then, again, my meagre 

 contribution to the bag would have been trebled had I but 

 shot in anything like the form shown by my companion. 

 In spite of these facts the fowl, when laid out on the 

 shore of the lagoon, made a very fair show ; among them 

 being grey duck, pink-bill teal, coots, avocet, and green- 

 shank. 



Having sent all the noisy beaters back to the out- 

 span, with the exception of Jacob, who was retained to 

 carry the spare cartridge -bag and any game we might 

 kill, H — — and myself started off across the veldt to try 

 for korhaan and francolin. A walk of twenty minutes 

 or so took us to the bush-veldt mentioned earlier herein, 

 and we commenced to beat through many acres of rank, 

 waist-high grass, from which the sun had not yet dissi- 

 pated the heavy night dew, and in a very short space 

 of time our thin khaki clothing was soaked through and 

 through. Such small discomforts, however, were soon 

 forgotten, for scarcely had we entered the bush when a 

 leash of red-wing francolin rose with a whirr between 



H and myself. Once more my friend scored a pretty 



right and left to his credit, and the remaining bird in 

 crossing me afforded a shot that the veriest tyro could 

 not easily have muffed ; and he, too, was dropped into 

 Jacob's flour-sack, which did duty for game-bag. 



A small hare (Lepus capensis) was next afoot, to be 



promptlybowled over by H , who shot into the moving 



grass, the animal itself being invisible to the human eye, 



