10 FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN. 



of those horrible ditches with mud up to your calves and 

 water up to your waist. However, there is no good stopping. 

 In for a penny, in for a pound, and you flounder through 

 and scramble up the other side. Unfortunately, this bog- 

 trotting- cannot be accomplished without noise. Each time 

 you succeed in extricating a leg from the sticky mire, out 

 it comes with a loud pop like a volley of soda water corks. 

 So when you think you are all there, and cautiously raise 

 your head over the rushes, you find the canny Duck have 

 swum well out from shore, and that, instead of being within 

 30 yards of them, they have put at least double that dis- 

 tance between you and them. There is no time for further 

 manoeuvring, so you blaze away merrily with both barrels, 

 and if you are lucky, succeed in bringing down three birds, 

 at least two of which are quite certain to escape. However, 

 one Wigeon is better than nothing ; and, with a sense of 

 partial success, you reseat yourself in your canoe, with your 

 legs dangling placidly in the water, by which pi'ocess you 

 expect, in good time, to relieve yourself of the superincum- 

 bent weight of some twenty pounds of clogging mud, and 

 give the word for "home," meaning that delightful yacht, with 

 an awning of plaited palm leaves which keeps out the breeze 

 and lets in the sun, and which is full of creeping things 

 innumerable. 



On your way back to your mud-stranded home, you pause 

 as you come across a clump of chipi trees in a mangrove 

 swamp and hear a confused chattering. From all directions 

 parties of Egrets, Herous, Crows, Cormorants, Ibis, Snake- 

 birds and Mynas are arriving in quick succession to this 

 common roost. Each new arrival provokes angry remon- 

 strances from those already seated, and the trees begin to 

 groan under the weight. As yon come closer, the noise is 

 deafening. Still you can distinguish the different notes, 

 and loud above all, the nagging "caw" of Corvus splendens. A 

 solitary Pond Heron comes sneaking up unobtrusively like 

 an amateur casual, and is immediately set upon by a combined 

 force of frows and Cormorants. He makes a precipitate 

 retreat and falls foul of some lasge White Egrets, who resent 

 his intrusion as an impertinence. After running the gauntlet 

 for several minutes, he at length gets a footing on a modest 

 perch, on the lowest branch of a tree, and escaping further 

 observation for a time, curls himself up as small as he can, 

 and tries to go to sleep. 



Twilight is departing, and you steal up, though not unob- 

 served, under the dark shadow of the trees. You single out 

 a particularly fine White Egret. You fire, and he falls, and 



