SEA-FOWL SHOOTING IN THE FIRTH OF FORTH. 127 



shallop over the waves, but the associations sure to cling to 

 it in future and far-distant years. To him each of those sea- 

 birds that grace his museum suggests its own wild tale of 

 grandeur or beauty. The beetling precipice, the gleaming, 

 tranquil sea, the jutting headland, or booming, boundless old 

 ocean, rise to his mind's eye, fresh and glorious, even by a 

 passing glance at that little denizen of the deep. 



The North Berwick fishermen had written to say that 

 eiders were plentiful, and had begun to seek the nesting- 

 islands in the Firth. Accompanied by my eldest son, and 

 armed with our shoulder duck-guns, we were next morning 

 early afloat for a cruise in search of them. The day was 

 bright, but the breeze perhaps rather too fresh to give us full 

 advantage in manoeuvring wild-fowl. We soon sighted sev- 

 eral flocks of snowy drakes with their russet partners ; but 

 from bearing too eagerly down upon them, raised them all 

 out of reach of even a cross-shot. Like all other game, wild- 

 fowl have their fidgety moods, sometimes without any appar- 

 ent cause. This morning, the eiders being shy and " fretty " 

 on water, we ran down to the islet of Fiddery, hoping for a 

 stalking-shot from the land. Although we expected any 

 feeding or resting fowl would be moored in the sheltered bays, 

 we first made sure of the exposed shore with our glasses, and 

 then noiselessly and stealthily landed on it. Directly oppo- 

 site was a tiny bay a favourite haunt, with the wind in the 

 quarter in which it then was. The approach was simple, 

 and, to an experienced shot, certain. When I got to the top 

 of the rock immediately above, as I expected there were 

 about a dozen ducks and drakes diving and sporting in joy- 

 ous security. A sheer descent of seventy yards rather cooled 

 my eagerness to fire, well knowing that even with my trusty 

 " Eoss " gun this was a most uncertain shot. Choosing a fine 

 drake, I fired, and he lay motionless on the water ; but my 

 second shot was not so fortunate, as the bird aimed at flew 

 rapidly round the island with the rest. 



