'LONG-SHORE SHOOTING. 317 



sands. He is a bird much in the mind of the shore shooter, 

 less often in his game bag, for he is as wary as a much stalked 

 "royal" stag in a Highland deer forest, and he must be 

 approached by such arts as the deer-stalker uses. The shooter 

 must utilize every inequality of ground or jutting rock, and be 

 very particular to come near his bird up, not down, wind. 



When the inland resorts of many of our winter migrants are 

 hardening with frosts, and the sea is t ossed into " white horses" 

 by a strong north-easter, the meeting-place of land and sea, 

 being least affected by cold, is the resort of many birds ; waders, 

 divers, wild duck and wild geese, that in more temperate weather 

 keep to the hillside or the valleys of the interior. Then again, 

 the purely deep-sea birds such as the brent geese, that in most 

 districts are more numerous than all other kinds of wild goose 

 put together, that hate dry land, and go far to sea to seek their 

 rest, even they are at times driven in by stress of weather, and 

 seek refuge in sheltered inlets and on the oozy flats. This late 

 autumn and early winter season, too, is the migratory time for the 

 larger wild fowl from the north, many of which make their abiding- 

 place in the estuaries and in the great marshes that neighbour 

 the sea. Then again, every change of wind or weather causes 

 the shore-birds, and especially the many kinds of duck or geese, 

 to change their quarters from land to sea, and vice versa, and at 

 these seasons the shore shooter enjoys many a chance of an un- 

 expected shot — not counting that twenty minutes before dark 

 comes on, when the water-fowl pass regularly over certain parts 

 of the coast from the offing to their feeding-grounds on shore. 



Most shore shooters work alone. The true shooter, like the true 

 angler, or the true philosopher, loves solitude, and if he tolerates a 



