326 DUCK SHOOTING 



of which, driving past me in a round mass and 

 at about 35 yards, gives me three for my two 

 barrels. Things now begin to grow very ani- 

 mated ; I can hear the other gun having an ex- 

 cellent time, and the birds, now fairly on the move, 

 are satisfactorily divided between us. Still they 

 come, red duck, black duck, whistlers, teal, 

 shovellers, and sheldrake. The geese, as is their 

 invariable habit, abandon the locality on the 

 first alarm, but, in spite of that, about an hourlater 

 when firing ceased, it was found that between us 

 we had gathered in almost as many birds as upon 

 the preceding evening, to say nothing of a fine 

 hare picked up on our way back to the ship. 



In the neighbourhood of the villages, especi- 

 ally of those more remotely situated, and suffi- 

 ciently well established topossess in their vicinity 

 extensive areas of maize and millet gardens, I 

 have seen guinea-fowls literally in hundreds, and 

 so tame that, having secured a brace or two, all 

 desire for further shooting left me. It would have 

 been no better sport than taking a gun into a weil- 

 stocked fowl run. But putting aside the now 

 rare occasions upon which these birds are en- 

 countered in these immense numbers, there are 

 few neighbourhoods in the interior where the 

 peculiar morning and evening call of guinea-fowls 

 may not be heard at those times of day. They 

 are not as a rule difficult to flush unless they have 

 been much shot, and afford a fine, satisfying mark 

 as, with a veritable thunder of wings, they rise 

 boldly into the air. Guinea-fowls are extra- 

 ordinarily local birds, and cling with a strange 



