THE GAME -DUCKS. 



173 



idea of their number would necessitate the employment of 

 inadmissible superlatives, while any estimate would be 

 hopeless. I often wish some of the legislators who premised 

 an Act of Parliament with the preamble that wildfowl are 

 decreasing in the British Islands, could see some of the 

 spectacles I have viewed during the past few months. But 

 attempt to "set up " to these whistling, chattering hordes 

 in a gunning-punt let your boat be the lowest, the lightest, 

 and the fastest ever launched, and her occupants full masters 

 of their craft they will utterly fail. The Sea-Pyots, 

 Plovers, and such-like simple birds (if alone) will, no doubt, 

 admit of approach ; but as for the rest, the Curlews, Godwits, 

 Knots well, they know a gunning-punt and its meaning as 



MALLARDS ASLEEP MIDDAY 



well as though each of them had a copy of Hawker or Payne- 

 Gall wey in his pocket. 



Yet, strange to relate, the Mallards, the finest and most 

 valuable fowl of them all, despite the experience of gener- 

 ations, do not yet seem fully to have learned to recognize the 

 deadly nature of that low white craft. Time after time I 

 have " shoved" up to within sixty, even fifty, yards of their 

 still unconscious flotilla, drifting slowly along on the tide, all 

 inanimate and apparently asleep, hardly a head to be seen. 

 Even after the cruel disappointment of a miss-fire they have 

 not risen at once. Up go their necks, full stretch, at the 

 snap of the cap, and their deep-toned and intensely eloquent 

 " q-u-a-r-k ! q-u-a-r-k ! " is barely audible, so gently and 

 suspiciously is the alarm note sounded, but they do not rise 



