352 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



cold even in India — get within easy shot of the birds as they feed on 

 the young growth. If wise he will blaze one barrel into the brown as 

 they feed and get what he oan with his second barrel as they rise ; if, 

 however, he is very near indeed, it is better to wait and have both 

 barrels into them on the wing. They take some time getting on way 

 after rising, and give lots of time to put in two shots, and more birds 

 will be dropped this way than if the unspread shot had taken them on 

 the ground. Hume also mentions stalking them under a blanket and 

 beguiling the geese into a belief that you are an inoffensive native just 

 out for a prowl ; where, however, the natives have a gun, the geese 

 will undoubtedly " wink the other eye, " and, blanket or no blanket, 

 leave long before that article is brought within shooting distance. A 

 bullock is more useful than a blanket under such circumstances, and 

 from behind the shelter of one much slaughter may be done if the 

 animal is properly worked. 



Hume says that they are easily killed during the daytime on all the 

 larger rivers. I have not found this to be the case myself, but as his 

 experience is fully twenty times what mine is, the sportsman had better 

 follow his advice and not mine. He says :— •" During the hotter parts 

 of the day, they are, as already mentioned, generally found in larger or 

 smaller parties dozing in the sun on some sandbank, at the water's 

 edge. Directly such a party is sighted, you take a small boat and, 

 with the aid of a couple of experienced men, row or punt noiselessly 

 down to another two or three hundred yards of the birds, when, if the 

 water intervening is shallow enough to allow it (and the boatmen 

 seem to know this by instinct), one man gets quietly out of the boat 

 behind, and, while you and your companion in the boat lie down out of 

 sight, he, stooping so as to be entirely concealed by the boat, pushes it 

 down gently and noiselessly, aided by the stream, towards the flock. 

 In this way you may approach, if all is well managed, to within 20 

 yards of even cranes ; you make some arrangement at the bows 

 (I had a false gunwale with suitable holes pierced in it) so as to 

 admit of peeping and shooting, without raising your head into 

 view, and when you get to what you consider the right distance, 

 knock over as many as you can sitting, with the first shot, and as many 

 more as you have time for, before they get out of shot, after they rise. 

 Everything depends on judging rightly the distance for the first shot, 



