108 Unexplored Spain 
the centre of the particular lagoon, whither, of recent days, the 
ducks have been observed to resort in greatest abundance from 
noon onwards. 
The gunner lies expectant on the cut rushes which strew the 
bottom-boards of his cajon—a box-shaped punt some 7 feet long 
by 24 broad, which is concealed by being thrust bodily in 
the midst of the biggest samphire bush available. The craft 
nevertheless is still afloat and, though flat-bottomed, is yet 
terribly crank, and any sudden movement to port or starboard 
threatens to capsize the entire outfit. 
To allay the tense suspicion of flighting wildfowl, several of 
the adjacent bushes for fifty yards around have been heightened 
by the addition of a cut bough or two—the idea being to induce 
a theory among passing ducks merely that this particular spot 
seems peculiarly favourable to samphire-growth—that and nothing 
more. 
In setting up decoys, while many are posed in lifelike 
attitudes, it is advisable to hang a few (especially white-plumaged 
species, such as pintail, shoveler, and wigeon-drakes) in almost 
vertical positions, in order to induce a belief among hungry in- 
comers that these birds are “‘turning-up” to feast on abundant 
subaquatic plants beneath. 
This intermittent flight is naturaliy irregular, hunger 
affecting greater or less numbers on different days; but when 
it comes off in force affords the cream of wildfowling from 
before noon till the sun droops in the west. During the last 
hour before he dips not a wing moves. 
Duck-shooting thus resolves itself into two main systems: 
(1) intercepting the fowl on flight at dawn, and later (2) 
awaiting their incoming at expected points. 
A good shoot may sometimes be engineered by cutting a 
broad ‘“‘ride” through the samphire along some flight-line, 
thereby forming an open channel between two lucios. Ducks 
which have hitherto flown sky-high in order to cross the danger- 
zone will now pass quite low along the new waterway, and even 
prefer it to crossing the cover at hazard, however high. 
A typical day’s fowling in mid-marisma may be described. 
The night has been spent in a reed-built hut charmingly situate 
on a mud-islet half-an-acre in extent, and commanding un- 
equalled views of flooded and featureless marisma. At 4 a.M. we 
