154 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



protracted frosts, when the salt water and the oozes freeze 

 between tides at such times it is that the wary fowl can at 

 last be got. Then very few people care to brave it on the 

 coast or to undergo what they would probably describe as 

 " the hardship of being out for hours in a piercing cold 

 turning night into day, and day into night lying cramped 

 up in a damp raft as narrow as a coffin, constantly wet, and 

 often in actual danger," &c. To the true wildfowler, 

 enamoured of his craft, such seasons are the acme of enjoy- 

 ment. To him the difficulty of getting these birds, their 

 beauty of form and cry, the great variety of their plumage at 

 different stages ay, and the very hardships themselves 

 are ever superlatively attractive. Personally, the writer may 

 fairly say he seldom feels so happy as when on board his 

 trim and smart little craft, gliding smoothly and rapidly over 

 the icy waters which Upper and play over her sharp bows, and 

 dance along the white and rounded decks. The prospect 

 around may be dreary heaven and earth blending in long 

 vistas of flat oozy " slakes," the monotony only relieved by 

 barren, bent-grown sand-links. But there is a charm in the 

 solitude and in the feeling that one is monarch of all one 

 surveys, and has inherited an innate dominion over the fowls 

 of the air (a sentiment, by the way, which is often rudely 

 dispelled) ; yet the presence of the beautiful creatures on 

 wing or water around can transform these dismal mud-flats 

 into one of the most delightful resorts. The world, in fact, 

 is very much what each of us makes it for himself. 



