280 THE TUFTED POCHARD. 
do not always fly ; indeed Ihave seen a large flock of several 
hundred birds disappear as if by magic; all having dived 
as if by one consent. If your boat can go, and you are very 
sharp, you may in such cases have great fun; a tremendous 
spurt is put on in the direction in which the mass of the ducks 
seemed heading as they dived. In a minute they begin to 
pop up round you within shot ; they come up with a regular 
jerk, generally showing little more than their heads and necks, 
and there are just about three seconds during which you caz 
shoot them, before realizing the circumstances they again 
disappear. I was once one of a party of ten guns in five boats, 
that got right in amongst a large flock of these Pochards that 
wouldn't rise, and kept them diving for, I suppose, ten minutes, 
during which a fusilade, such as I have seldom heard, was 
energetically kept up. The result was five birds killed, and 
three of the party and two boatmen hit (but not badly) with 
shot which had glanced up off the water. Four out of the five 
I killed, though several better shots were present, and this by 
a simple expedient that is worth knowing—I had a few cartrid- 
ges for Pelicans containing each eight, eighty to the lb. bullets ; 
and, finding I could not shoot quick enough to catch the birds 
before they got under water, I used these slug cartridges, fired 
only at those birds which rose close to the boat, and shot well 
under them. 
At cther times they will rise before you are within a hundred 
yards, and taking short flights, plump down again suddenly 
into the water, stern first, as if shot. In such cases you 
may at times work them very satisfactorily, if you chance to 
have a considerable party and several boats, and the lake is long 
and comparatively narrow. If they are comfortably settled on 
a sheet of water that suits them and where they have sojourn- 
ed in peace for a mouth or two, it is scarcely possible to drive 
them away from it the first day. Next day, after they have 
been thoroughly harried, not a bird is sometimes to be seen, but 
they will scarcely quit till after dark. In this respect they are 
like Coots, and if means and appliances are available, they may 
be worked just as we work these towards the close of autumn 
at home. The day after the failure above related, (we spent 
the rest of the day snipe-shooting, killing a good many teal 
and other ducks round the margin), we found, directly 
we got on the water, that all the Tufted Pochards, instead of 
diving, kept rising as we approached. Then I bethought me 
of our Norfolk Coot-shootings, formed line, boats about 
80 yards apart (this was too far, but we had to cover the 
breadth of the jhil), put a gun on the shore on each side and 
went straight at them. At first they only rose and flew ahead of 
us, but as we got nearer the end they began to come back 
over the line, pretty high, but many of them well within shot. 
When all were up, we turned and worked backwards, in the 
