122 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 
are, as a rule, lean—due, no doubt, to the long flights they 
take—but, despite this, when slowly roasted and well basted 
they are quite a delicacy. After hard weather and living on 
the tideway, grey geese are not then so good for food. 
The art of calling shore-birds is one only gained by long 
practice. The usual method is to hide up in the daily flight- 
lines of the birds. Ambuscades made of drift-ware, 
pcmcia grasses, stones, and such like are erected to conceal 
the gunner from the sight of the passing birds, and 
as he mimics their cries he thus often attracts them within 
range. This, however, is only practicable under favourable 
conditions, such as the flow of spring tides, when the birds are 
floated off their feeding and resting grounds and compelled to 
seek drier quarters inland or fly about at sea. The experienced 
wildfowler is fully aware of these circumstances, and by taking 
advantage of them often secures good sport. He is also 
competent in imitating the calls of other shore-birds that will 
entice them near, such as a low, short ‘‘kurr, kurr,” the call- 
note of the curlew. Should he fail in accurately pitching the 
tones, away go the birds. Curlews are exceedingly wary and 
alert to detect unfamiliar sounds. Once the long-drawn whistle 
which indicates alarm to the curlew has been set echoing 
across the mud-flats every bird is on the alert. 
Shooting curlews from a hut or hiding-place is good sport ; 
in fact, holes dug in the mud-flats are usually not so good as 
a hut, because the tide invariably washes out the shooter from 
the former just when most birds are coming. To describe 
a night’s curlew flighting from my own experience, let us 
suppose that there is a fairly high spring tide at 6 p.m., and 
we are down at the hut about 4.30 p.m. Far out over the flats 
may be seen long strings and bunches of curlews and other 
shore-birds winging along as the tide puts-them up. They 
are off to their high-water resting grounds, where, if un- 
