TIIK ADMIRABLE ISIIM AKUTKS 



439 



brown-coated birds were moving with the 

 speed of teal. Two yards ahead of the 

 leader; and they were just a trifle beyond 

 me when the nitro cracked with a report 

 like a Colt's forty-four. On and on the 

 curlew went, their speed increasing with 

 every wing beat. One hundred yards, two 

 hundred, then the leader paused, half 

 turned round and fell end over end to the 

 earth. My two yards ahead had caught 

 him lightly but enough to cripple. And 



they came to look for their wounded one; 

 circled in midair so many times that it 

 seemed the brown eyes of the dog must 

 grow dizzy from watching them, and then 

 dropped down, almost in a body, round the 

 grass plat whence came the cries of the 

 wounded one. For an instant one, larger of 

 body and apparently a bit more suspicious, 

 hung in the air a few feet from the ground. 

 Those on the ground were safe, but this one 

 was doomed to end his days. Cautiously 



A CALIFORNIA RIVER — IT SUGGESTS POSSIBILITIES FOR THE ISHMAELITE IN DUCK SEASON- 



IT'S PRETTY 



-AND 



so it was I learned something about curlew 

 shooting, learned that when one of these 

 long-billed birds is doing his best he isn't 

 going half as fast as you think he is, and at 

 no time in his career can his speed compare 

 with that of a well-roused teal, possessed of 

 the idea that safety for him lies on the other 

 side of the world from you. 



The curlew drove on for perhaps another 

 two hundred yards; the dog and I ran for- 

 ward as fast as we could, dropping into a 

 heavy clump of "buffalo" grass some fifty 

 feet from the wounded bird. Here we 

 waited, and to us presently came again the 

 wavering cry of the curlew band. Back 



up came the little gun. Once more it 

 cracked spitefully and the bird dropped, 

 quite dead, into the grass, to lie alongside 

 its companion, by this time as dead as he. 

 Now hurriedly uprose the rest of them, 

 beating their way out through the air at 

 their best speed. At them and after them 

 the twenty spoke, but the range was too 

 great or the aim poor, or some other thing 

 interfered, for all went on and on off into 

 the marshes that lie around old Ballona 

 Bay. 



We, my dog and I, gathered up our two 

 curlew carefully, I smoothing each feather 

 so carefully over the gray-brown bodies ere 



