By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



67 



to impulse takes wing, wheels about with simultaneous movement, 

 it and as rapidly settles again at the edge of the waves. This general 

 1 account of their immense numbers may in some degree prepare 

 il the way for a marvellous shot, which I am about to relate; and 

 i; which will doubtless seem incredible to those whose experience is 

 i confined to inland shooting only, and who are unaccustomed to see 

 the vast flights of birds which occasionally collect on our coasts; 

 but of the truth of which I have satisfied myself, and therefore do 

 not hesitate to publish the story. It is the custom of the wild- 

 fowl shooters or " gunners," as they are called on the Norfolk 

 coast, to paddle noiselessly down the creeks of the Wash in a low 

 narrow gun-boat or canoe, with a large duck gun moving on a 

 swivel lashed like a cannon in the bow ; and a single lucky shot 

 into a flock of geese, or ducks, or knots, or other birds, frequently 

 produces a great harvest of spoil. With one of these gunners I 

 am very well acquainted, and have been accustomed to overhaul 

 the produce of his day's or rather night's excursion in search of 

 rare specimens : and from him I have gathered a great deal of 

 information on the shore-feeding birds of the eastern coast. He 

 has often astonished me by the quantities of ducks of various species 

 with which his boat was loaded on his return, and I have seen half 

 a sackful of Knots, amounting to above two hundred in number, 

 turned out on the floor of his cottage as the result of one fortunate 

 shot with the long gun : but when he assured me that on one 

 occasion he had picked up and brought home after a single dis- 

 charge no less than thirty-six dozen and eleven Knots, or four 

 hundred and forty-three birds, I acknowledge that I was incre- 

 dulous, till conversation with sportsmen of the neighbourhood 

 convinced me that the story was true ; and then I felt ashamed 

 that ignorance of shore-shooting in the fens led me to doubt the 

 word of an honest man. Since then I have often watched the 

 Knots by the hour together on the Norfolk coast, on the shores of 

 the Wash ; and with a double field-glass (the ornithologists best 

 companion) have followed the every movement of these busy birds: 

 and seeing the dense array of the countless hosts which compose 

 a flock, I can well understand the havoc which a well-aimed 



