180 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



So far these notes have been confined to the diurnal habits 

 of the birds under consideration. Now follows the night 

 by far their busiest and most animated period and we will 

 try to follow their fortunes under the moon. As the sun 

 sinks below the land, and the gloom of the winter's night 

 gathers around, there is commotion among those keen-eyed 

 hosts which, since daybreak, have been rocking and tossing on 

 the waves, or whiling away the hours on the sand-wastes. 

 The sensation of hunger arouses them again to activity, and 

 about an hour after dark could one but see them ! they 

 are rising in detachments, in little trips of two or three to a 

 dozen or more, and speeding away separately through the 

 darkness. Over the sea, and over the ranges of desolate 

 sand-links, they hurry forward to the stretches of ooze and 

 mud-flats within. All the day these wastes have been abso- 

 lutely deserted, and, so far as ducks are concerned, quite 

 lifeless. Now the dark skies resound with the sharp rustling 

 of wings, and they circle lovingly over the broad expanse of 

 succulent Zoster a, gloating over the prospect of an alder- 

 manic feast, and piping out their pretty resonant " whee- 

 you." Then suddenly, from right beneath them, flashes a 

 lurid gleam, and, as the report echoes across the waste, down 

 falls poor " Penelope " flop on the mud. Away speed the sur- 

 vivors, but at point after point they meet with the same in- 

 hospitable reception. The " flighters " are out in force to- 

 night, for the moon is well obscured by driving clouds, and 

 the ducks are more easily discerned against their half-trans- 

 lucent masses. At last, in despair of finding a safe landing 

 on the mud, down drop the Wigeon in the open water, and 

 presently paddle cautiously inshore. But even then there is 

 no absolute security. To the very outermost verge of the 

 plains of rotten ooze, some hardy gunner, inspired to the 

 tips of his toes with the predatory instinct, has managed to 

 find a way by " pledging" down the course of some burn, 

 whose shell-paved bed will just bear his weight. There he 

 lies flat on his slimy couch ; the armful of bent grass he has 

 brought to rest on, already soaked by the rising tide, and the 

 ooze and water slowly creeping into his sea-boots and all over 

 him. Presently the little flotilla looms on the moonlit water 



