go A WINTER VISIT TO THE FARNE ISLANDS. 



ducks float off with the tide. Shortly, another duck came straight 

 over my head, at whom I fired both barrels, but without effect, owing, 

 perhaps, to my state of indignation against M. ; I tried to think so. 

 Yet another, who falls close to the water's edge. The young spaniel, 

 who had never seen the sea before, and could not understand why 

 water should rise up in waves, apparently without reason, and hit him 

 in the face, declined, though a good retriever on land, to bring the 

 duck, so watching an opportunity I made a rush between two waves, 

 and thanks to a pair of fishing waders, retrieved without wetting, a 

 female or young male Eider. Nothing further occurring, I joined E. 

 and W., who had also lost birds through the absence of the boat, and 

 we made signals of distress. After a while, back came M. in the boat, 

 leisurely, benignly smiling the smile of victory, and displayed an old 

 Cormorant, which he had wounded and after a long chase, and a 

 liberal expenditure of ammunition, secured. He seemed surprised 

 at our want of enthusiasm, as we addressed him, m^ore in sorrow than 

 anger, and we went to look for our dead, but without success, as they 

 had had nearly an hour's start on a fast tide. 



We then went on our way to visit the other islands, securing as 

 we went a young Gannet in the black and white spotted plumage, for 

 a specimen. A course of recriminations, however, seemed in some 

 degree to have ^put out,' metaphorically speaking, the 'eye' of the 

 party, and two Golden-eyes (one an adult drake), and a couple of Wild 

 Ducks, which we flushed on the islands, and which ought to have 

 been added to the bag, escaped scatheless. A few good specimens 

 of Purple Sandpipers in winter plumage and a Turnstone were 

 collected, and Dunhn and Redshanks seen, and M., a young but 

 ardent sportsman, was with difficulty restrained from slaying more 

 Cormorants and various Gulls. For we made it a rule to take no life, 

 except for food, or for a needed specimen, and might have made an 

 exception to the latter in the case of a rare accidental visitor. Would 

 that all who visit these islands would show a little humanity now 

 and then ! For who has not heard of the steamer-loads of so-called 

 sportsmen who leave the Tyne every autumn for the Fames, and who 

 destroy, with a platoon fire, every unfortunate bird that comes within 

 range, without so much as taking the trouble to pick 'jp the fallen, 

 or even to put the wounded out of their misery? However, an 

 association has been formed to put an end to this barbarity, to 

 which we will wish all success. 



Washing out my mouth (metaphorically, again), after this unsavoury 

 digression, I will only add that we visited all the islands, without 

 seeing anything but Gannets, Guillemots, &c., so we turned to come 

 back to North Sunderland. Passing the Inner Fame we saw at a 



Naturalist, 



