16 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



Meanwhile, the Skua gave up chasing Terns and took half an hour's aerial 

 exercise in the rising gale. Never had I realized till then what his powers of 

 flight were. At one moment he was buffeting with the wind on the far side 

 of the estuary, and then with a single terrific swoop he had passed it, had left 

 us in a twinkling, and was whirling with exultant sweeps across the sea. Our 

 enjoyment of this flying exhibition was soon cut short by a shout from the 

 boatman, who, fearful lest his boat should be carried out to sea, insisted on 

 returning before the weather grew worse. 



So the Skua had baffled us once more, and now it was our turn to take 

 exercise compulsory exercise of a very different sort a hard row in the teeth 

 of a stiff breeze and choppy sea. How we did get the boat round that corner 

 goodness only knows; but this much is certain, there were wild words flying 

 about, and much loss of temper people half missing their stroke, and ladling 

 sea-water over companions, or, worse still, companions' guns a vision of 

 rusted barrels and oily rags ; and finally rain put the finishing touch to what 

 everyone was now forced to recognize as a thoroughly disastrous day. We 

 never thought about shooting till we were round the corner, and no shot was 

 fired until we reached the home creek. Here in the gathering gloom someone 

 had a bang at a Greenshank, declared that he had killed it, and condemned 

 the rest of the party to a provoking and unprofitable search. We had indeed 

 seen the reverse side of the picture, and it was with a feeling of general 

 and undisguised relief that we at length came alongside of the lighter, and 

 incontinently made tracks for the hotel. 



As for the Skua, he mocked us once more on the morrow by flying over 

 my head as I knelt with gun unloaded beside a wounded Wader. And the 

 end was so prosaic after all ; a year later two of us met a dark specimen alone 

 upon the sand, walked him up and shot him with ease. This is what most 

 people do straight away, and our mismanagement of the business had been 

 the joke of the village ; but for all that, the Skua has become for us an 

 historic bird, and stuffed in the oft seen attitude of pursuit after a Tern, 

 it is, and always will be, one of the most highly prized ornaments of our 

 museum. 



Another bird that sometimes falls a victim to the man in the boat is the 

 Heron. It is one of those creatures that you can often get close to when 

 not over anxious to do so, and which on other occasions will hardly stay in 

 the same parish. Walking along the Beaulieu River in the close season, I 

 once followed a Heron for several miles. It retired into each creek before I 

 got there, and flapped forth under my very nose when I arrived. But it is 

 far otherwise in autumn on the mud-flats. Once only have I brought it to 



