278 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



shooting and shooting ducks ever become synonymous 

 terms. 



To return to our narrative. It is still only 10 A.M., and 

 there remain to us several hours in which to avert the 

 disaster of an empty bag. So we start on our third essay. 

 The tide being now about dead low, the field of operations 

 is restricted to the deep-water channels which intersect the 

 mud-flats. These vast expanses of ooze too soft to carry a 

 man, too solid to float a punt thus, through the action of the 

 tides, afford a safe asylum to the fowl, where twice every day 

 they can for several hours feed and rest in peace, secure from 

 man and all his works. At first luck seemed about to dawn 

 upon us, for in the channels we got a pair of Scaup-duck 

 and a Grebe with the small gun. Then the current changed 

 again. As the tide flowed over the mud, we observed that 

 a number of Mallard had remained " inside " to feed on the 

 luxuriant crop of sea-grass Zostera, marina which now 

 waved in the tide currents beneath us in luxuriant swathes 

 of brightest emerald. At the Mallard we had two punt- 

 shots during the flood : the first, at about a dozen sitting 

 scattered on the mud-edge, was a total failure. The 

 range was the deadly seventy yards, the elevation was cor- 

 rect ; but, though the BB seemed fairly to rake their posi- 

 tion, not a single bird stayed. It was one of the mischances 

 that will occur ; so with an effort we choke despair and try 

 again. The other shot was at rather over a score swimming 

 in roughish water and at a longer range. As the smoke 

 cleared off' we saw four Mallard stretched on the sea and 

 two more fatally crippled : still far from being as satisfac- 

 tory a shot as it might have been. 



All the morning we had had the Geese in view, some 

 busily feeding in black patches on the Zostera, others flying 

 restlessly about in long gaggling skeins. The winter had 

 been so mild and open throughout that these wary fowl were 

 far too watchful to allow the slightest chance of approach, 

 even in a punt. Now, at full tide, they lined the shore in 

 scattered companies for several miles, and their white sterns 

 were conspicuous bobbing up among the dark wavelets as 

 they reached down to the succulent sea-grass beneath them. 



