8 FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN. 



your thoughts are not for them. A Rail appears at the 

 edge of the swamp, and before you have time to see what 

 species it belongs to, scuttles back under cover. You know it 

 is useless to try to find it, and the mud on the banks is too 

 deep and black to be attempted without graver provocation. 

 So you creep on through gullet after gullet, and begin to think 

 it quite time you bagged something, and that a few of those 

 Golden Plover you passed would have been better than 

 nothing. In desperation you conceive wicked designs against 

 that Pied Kingfisher who will keep flying backwards and 

 forwards, but you relent when you see him hover so confidingly 

 about five yards from the muzzle of your gun. 



Talking of Ceryle rudis reminds me of a story of 

 a griffin who was always, according to his own account, 

 shooting Snipe at impossible times and places : — rt He never 

 could understand," he said, tl why men said Snipe were so 

 difficult to hit. He thought there was nothing easier. Of 

 course they went off at a good pace, but you had only to 

 wait till they hovered, and you generally hit them." A 

 few days afterwards it was discovered that this innocent had 

 been for weeks clearing all the rivers of Geryle rudis, in the 

 fond and confident belief that they were "full Snipe." What 

 he thought of the flavour of his game, history does not say. 

 Well, you let off that " hovering" Snipe, and it is too late 

 to land and beat the paddy fields you knew must lie behind 

 that long embankment for real Snipe. At any rate you 

 may as well shoot two or three good specimens of common 

 birds before it gets dark. There are several Prinias flitting 

 about in the thorny bushes close by, and perhaps you have 

 not got them from this locality. You have given up the last 

 faint hope of the Duck on this occasion. So you draw your 

 full charges and substitute half ones, and no sooner is this 

 accomplished, then you see something black in the water 

 coming rapidly towards you. Is it a Snake Bird ? No, by 

 Jove ! it's an Otter. He comes within twenty yards — sees the 

 boat — stops and looks at you with his head well out of water. 

 You may never have such a chance again, but " confound those 

 specimen charges !" Half an ounce of No. 10, driven by a 

 dram and a half of powder, would make no more impression 

 on his sleek little head than a peashooter on a costermonger's. 

 While you fumble in your cartridge bag for an S. S. G., the 

 Otter looks interested and amused; but just as you have 

 succeeded in making the needful preparations for his immediate 

 execution, the knowing little fellow gives a wink and a grin, 

 and down he goes singing, 



" I'm a young man from the country, 

 But you don't get orer me." 



