THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 589 



evening shooting round the skirts of the hheel two guns picked up 

 42 couple and found the birds so numerous that we decided to 

 devote the following day to them alone. 



The ground we were to shoot over had once been high forest 

 land which had sunk until it formed a swamp in which there were 

 some three or four feet of water all the year round. The trees had, 

 of course, all died but the stumps of many of the harder grained 

 ones were still standing, white and bleached and looking like the 

 ghosts of their former selves. In the centre of these swamps 

 shooting on foot was impossible as the water was still too 

 deep, but all over the more shallow parts grew a dense mass of 

 floating weeds a couple of feet thick and quite firm enough to 

 walk on with care. There were three guns to take the field 

 on this occasion, viz, myself, a second who was an average but 

 careful shot, and a third, who could be called nothing but a rank 

 bad one. 



Before we got into the swamp itself we picked up a couple of 

 teal and two snipe out of pools at the edge and as soon as we got 

 on the weeds away went snipe in every direction. At first, the 

 shooting was easy, the weeds firm and the water shallow and our 

 first dozen or so shots collected 8 birds but after this we got into 

 deeper stuff and the shooting got worse and worse. The birds 

 still swarmed on all sides but they were rather wild and the 

 weeds, though strong enough to hold us as long as we moved, 

 gave way when we stood, so that our ' fore leg,' on which the 

 weight was, sunk as we fired. Sometimes we sank slowfy and 

 fired after a fashion, sometimes we sank with a sudden disconcert- 

 ing splash, it might be a couple of feet or it might be four and 

 sometimes it was even more than this. 



It was very exhausting work and after a couple of hours, having 

 the fortune to get on a small island, we called a halt and looked 

 at the bag. C, the bad shot, had fired 42 shots and had not a 

 feather to show. Y, the cautious man, had had 30 shots to 12 

 dead birds, and I myself, shooting at everything within range, got 

 18 birds in 65 cartridges. After a short rest we tramped on once 

 more but C, after loosing off another 40 cartridges or so and bag- 

 ging one bird fell into a buffalo wallow up to his neck, and on 



