FLIGHT SHOOTING 255 



moor-hen, the coot, and the water-rail creep forth 

 from their lurking-places in the withy-bed, and, with 

 a cheery note of confidence, call to their fellows to 

 follow their example. The dabchick dives and 

 disports herself, in careless security, on the moonlit 

 water at your very feet. The water-rat scuttles 

 along in the stiff herbage, or, sitting up on his hind 

 legs, cleans his face at leisure. The wild cries of 

 the snipe and the heron, the peewit and the curlew, 

 the golden plover and the sandpiper, birds heard 

 but not seen, startle and charm the silence. It 

 is not for them that you are watching and wait- 

 ing. A little later, and you catch in the dis- 

 tance the loud whirring of unnumbered wings, 

 you hear the shrill cry of the leading duck or 

 wigeon, anxious, in the gloom, to keep his followers 

 together and I would remark that all the birds 

 that fly by night have, with this end in view, a 

 loud shrill cry you just catch sight of them and 

 they are gone ; gone, as they fly, three gunshots 

 aloft, towards some more favoured feeding-ground 

 far up the river. But they are followed by others, 

 sometimes by single birds, sometimes by twos or 

 threes, sometimes by a dozen or a score, some of 

 them but half seen, others but half heard. You 

 have one and another snap shot, and you miss. 



