THE BUSHES. 59 



A word on the subject of indiscriminate slaughter. Quite apart from 

 the cruelty, very little comes of it. A shooter who takes the trouble to 

 notice the common birds carefully will, in nine cases out of ten (the tenth 

 being the Robin), spot the rarity as different if he comes upon it. It was 

 so at all events in the case of the Icterine which I had the good luck to 

 secure on September 5th, 1899. At the end of a long and unsuccessful 

 day's shooting in the estuary, I turned aside from the homeward track 

 towards the bushes, already worked through in the morning, as a last 

 chance of picking up something rare. They had just been thrashed out by 

 another collector, and I myself had seen nothing in them before ; but no 

 matter, I knew that went for little. I would just try one favourite beat, 

 "the first sandhill bushes," a bare one hundred yards of the tallest scrub. 

 Before I had traversed ten of them, out popped a Warbler, and, little as 

 the Icterine differs from the Willow Wren, I guessed at once what it was. 

 The shape was different, and though the back view and wings with their 

 light-coloured tertiaries were suggestive in a way of an immature Pied 

 Flycatcher, I had caught a glimpse of the yellow breast, and eagerly 

 hastened in pursuit. From over-excitement I missed more than once, but 

 at length getting in a clear shot as it darted for a moment across the 

 sand, I rushed up, and shortly afterwards experienced the most delightful 

 of all sensations as I gazed on the large tell-tale beak of a genuine 

 Hypolais icterina. 



Kind indeed has fortune been to me since 'that eventful day. On 

 September i3th, 1904, I was shooting the bushes with my brother, G. F. The 

 whole place swarmed with Linnets, and, remembering that it was out of a flock 

 of Linnets that Dr. Power got his Ortolan, I remarked jokingly to a rival 

 shooter, as I passed him, that I was going out to get an Ortolan. A 

 quarter of a mile on, up got a lightish bird, which I momentarily took to 

 be a Lark. By the time it was out of range its flight and more mellow 

 note had told me that it was something else, and I rushed round the sand- 

 hills to get another look at it. Here my brother joined me, and we put the 

 bird up and missed it. It was now quite clear that it was a stranger, and, 

 though it rose wild the next time, I just got in a shot, and secured thereby 

 fame as a prophet and, what pleased me more, an Ortolan ! It lacked the 

 beautiful plumage of the adult male, but had nevertheless a fine flush of 

 chestnut on the flanks. It was a bird that one might easily have passed 

 over owing to its insignificant appearance on the wing ; its flight was swift 

 and low, not heavy like that of the Corn-Bunting or Yellowhammer ; it 

 reminded me rather of the flight of a Garden-Warbler. 



