La Mancha 189 



At these earlier timtlHs a good gun sliould be able, with ease, to 

 bring down, say, 400 ducks, although this number dwindles sadly in 

 the pick-up, since but few of those birds will be recovered that fall 

 outside the narrow space of open water around each " hide." One 

 may say roughly that at least one-fourth are lost. For, although 

 each post be surrounded by open water, yet many ducks must fall within 

 the encircling canes, wiiile even those that fall in the open, if winged and 

 beyond the reach of a second barrel, will inevitably gain the shelter of 

 the covert, and all these are irrecoverable. Others, again, carrying on a 

 few yards, may fall dead in open water, but at a distance the precise 

 ])osition of which is difficult to fix by reason of intervening cane-brakes. 

 Thus between those that are lost in the above ways and others that may 

 be carried away by the wind or the current (besides many that are 

 devoured by hawks and eagles under the fowler's eye but beyond the 

 range of his piece) it is no exaggerated estimate that barely three-fourths 

 of the fallen are ever recovered. 



To the above description another Spanish friend, Don Isidore 

 Urzdiz, adds the following : — 



In the year 1892 I fired at ducks in a single morning at Daimiel 

 one thousand and ten cartridges. This was between 6.30 and 10.30 a.m. 

 I gathered rather over two hundred, losing upwards of a hundred more. 

 I shot badly ; it being my first experience with duck, I had not learnt to 

 let them come well in, and often fired too soon. 



In subsequent tiradas I have never enjoyed quite so much luck, 

 although never firing less than 400 to 500 cartridges. In spite of the 

 difficulty of recovering dead game, I have always on these occasions 

 gathered from one hundred upwards — the precise numbers I have not 

 recorded. Some of the puestos have a very small extent of open water 

 around them, and in these a greater proportion of the game is necessarily 

 lost. For example, in a single quite small clump of reeds I remember 

 marking not less than thirty ducks fall dead, yet of these I recovered 

 not one. The sharp-edged leaves of the sedge (masw/d) cut like a knife, 

 and the boatman who entered the reeds to collect the game returned a 

 few minutes later without a bird, but with hands, arms, and legs bleeding 

 from innumerable cuts and scratches, which obliged him to desist from 

 further search. This is but one example of the difficulty of recovering 

 fallen game. 



As examples of the totals secured individually in a day may 

 be quoted the following. At the first shooting in 1908 the 

 Duke of Arion gathered 251 ducks, and at the second shoot, 245, 

 the Duke of Prim, 197. The record bag was made some ten or 

 twelve years ago by a Valencian sportsman, Don Juan Cistel, 



