128 British Diving Ducks 
do not know what is happening, and fear to be surprised, or perhaps surrounded. 
Even partridges will rise freely if you stop to reload. Wherefore there is something 
more frightening to birds in the man who halts than he who keeps steadily on. 
By thus advancing slowly and steadily duck and teal will generally sit to within shot 
unless the weather is unusually bad, and a good bag made up if the place is properly looked 
after. Numbers of " flappers," which include both young ducks and old males in eclipse, 
will be encountered in August, and these should be released again, whilst the constant dis- 
traction of water-hens is apt to upset even the best dog. Yet the sport is on the whole a 
very good one, and far more enjoyable than shooting partridges in September. The British 
Islands possess many delightful bogs where good sport can be obtained. I have even had 
good fun in public places, such as the Tay mud flats at Inchture, where I have killed as many 
as forty duck in a day, and in the Orkney Islands. Sport of this kind is usually cheap, 
though it may not always be accessible or easy to find. For two summers I rented for one 
month a farm in the Hebrides for ^40 a month, and killed over 200 duck each year, though 
quite half the time was spent in hunting seals and small mammals, &c. I should call that 
very cheap and excellent shooting compared to the indifl"erent sport to be obtained from the 
average partridge and pheasant estates. 
On the other hand there are many who do not relish ploughing through high reeds and 
falling into bog and slime on a hot day, with the off-chance of a worse catastrophe in the 
shape of treacherous holes where the shooter may be immersed altogether. Only experience, 
however, can teach the shooter how to know the colour and the look of such traps, and when 
found it is well to test them or have a man behind ready to pull you out. Personally I 
have had more than one narrow escape, and have seen a friend almost drowned before my 
eyes. The Procurator- Fiscal of a certain island in the North does not love me because I 
asked him to shoot in a somewhat dangerous bog one day. He did not take the line I told 
him to follow, and soon fell in up to his neck, and was rescued with difficulty. A little 
later his favourite dog, a really fine animal, got into a hole, and though he was not 
drowned he died the same evening from the quantity of mud he had swallowed., 
By the end of September, when the migratory duck are beginning to arrive in some 
numbers, there is a noticeable wildness on the part of the game, and if rarer specimens are 
to be killed it is often more successful to drive bogs, pools, or small lakes. This can also be 
done without the troublesome adjuncts of a crowd of beaters, for if the shooter knows his 
ground and has studied the lines of flight used by the birds he can nearly always " move" 
the duck to concealed gun or guns by means of one or at most two drivers. This is an 
interesting form of sport which, without resulting in large bags, often supplies specimens 
in various changes of immature and adult plumage which the naturalist may wish to 
obtain. 
At this time, too, "flighting" may be commenced — one of the best of all sports. The 
selection of the right spot where the gunners should stand is a matter of personal observa- 
tion. From one hour to ten minutes before darkness sets in all surface-feeding duck " flight " 
from the open waters or bays where they have spent the day at rest, and move to their feed- 
ing grounds for the night. Conversely they "flight" back to their secure homes at dawn, 
and though the morning flight is often the best in winter and early spring, the evening 
passage is usually the best in autumn days. 
