i 2 6 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



raptorial bird. I lay perfectly still until its facial disc was apparent, well 

 within range, and passing me about forty yards off on the left side. Then 

 I whipped up my gun, took a steady aim, and pulled the trigger. Soul of 

 a Crow ! It was half-cocked. I had forgotten that we were having lunch, 

 and rapidly as I cocked the left barrel and got it into action, the effort 

 was too late, the chance was gone ; the Harrier had left us en route for 

 Africa, or maybe the South Pole, to judge by the style of her departure. 

 As for my companion, Flattery herself would find it difficult to eulogise 

 his share in the catastrophe ; he sat through it all with both barrels at 

 full-cock, and forgot to fire either of them ! 



Rarity number three owed his or her escape to my innate humanity, 

 collector though I am. It was September, and I was dreamily strolling 

 along a reed-fringed dyke on my way to take up a station for the evening 

 flight. Out popped a Reed- Warbler ; at least, was it a Reed-Warbler ? 

 Yes, I somewhat lazily decided it was, though with rather a striking head. 

 Again it appeared, fluttering up to the top of a reed, and again that very 

 white cheek caught my eye. Still I did not fire; a Reed-Warbler is too nice 

 a bird to kill on speculation, and I had not come to take it very seriously 

 yet ; I did not even cock my gun. And now we were approaching a dense 

 reed-bed at the end of the dyke, and my little friend, keeping near the water, 

 did not emerge again until he reached the very last of the open reeds. 

 Then he fluttered up, and as he did so the light of the setting sun caught 

 him fair. Could I believe my eyes ? There were dark bars across the tail. 

 For a moment I did not grasp their full significance, and then, like a flash, 

 there came upon me Mr. Frohawk's picture in ' British Birds.' The 

 attitude had happened to be the same ; I was convinced that I had seen 

 a Savi. By the time I had realized ,all this the bird was in the reed- 

 bed, and I was never able to dislodge it. Sceptics, of course, will smile. I 

 should in their place, but I shall always believe, nevertheless, that I have 

 been privileged to behold a specimen of this long-lost denizen of our fens. 



With the last-mentioned bird I close my record of " lost oppor- 

 tunities." Other collectors must have had many similar experiences, but 

 most prefer to bury them in oblivion. They don't enjoy laughing at them- 

 selves, and still less do they enjoy being laughed at by others ; and so, 

 for the most part, they seek their consolation in a good dinner, and en- 

 deavour to persuade themselves that the bird palpably was not that which 

 they most certainly thought it was when they were proceeding to fire at 

 it, and had not yet missed. 



But, after all, most of us can treat misses with some sort of equa- 



