94 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
yards long; the rope is at least seventy. Too ponderous 
an affair for one man to manage. The haul was only one 
Widgeon—not much for many hours’ labour, for I was teld 
they had been driving since daybreak. 
The thing was done ona smaller scale by our own boat- 
men, who placed a small clap-net at the end of the island 
where we anchored, and made a kind of cache in which one 
of them spent the night, and next morning he produced a 
drake Pintail which he had caught, and which we kept alive 
in a hutch for long after: 
I must now describe how Coots are captured, for it was 
more particularly to see the mode of taking them that we 
had come out. As soonas night sets in, four or five “ Coot- 
catchers” sally forth in a flat-bottomed boat, provided with 
a fireplace of baked mud, and a couple of punting poles, 
for the greater part of this immense lake is very shallow. 
Soon the distant “muttering” of the quarry is heard. The 
boat is propelled circumspectly, silence is enjoined, until 
from the increasing volume the men judge that they are 
within a few hundred yards of the place the sound comes 
from. Then one, more hardy than the rest, slips aside his 
pelisse of sheep-skin, stands erect for a moment, naked save 
a thin waistband and a tight-fitting black skullcap, winds a 
long casting net round his right arm and jumps into the 
water; and now the use of the skullcap is seen, for as he is 
immersed to his nostrils it is the only part which shows, 
and of course it resembles a Coot exactly.* 
He makes a trial essay with his net, which he throws 
with consummate skill. I have seen men in England who 
thought they knew how to throw a casting net, but I never 
saw one who could equal in dexterity these Menzaleh 
fishermen. I should say he would be certain death to any 
* Formerly a white A/ague was added to represent the frontal shield, 
but this is now dispensed with. 
