On the Various Methods of Shooting Ducks 133 
because he will get so many that he is able to pick and choose his specimens, and complete 
his series of their life-history. On the other hand, the opportunities of shooting true sea- 
ducks by these methods are few and far between, because if he attempts to invade them in 
the shelterless seas in which they live, he is apt to get into trouble. I have killed Long- 
tails, Scoters, and even Eiders out on the sea with the punt-gun, but I always felt that I 
was doing something rather foolish, and was glad to get ashore again. The sea-ducks 
(except Long-tails in spring) are absurdly callous to the presence of the flat-bottomed boat, 
and I have several times drifted right through a flock of Scoters and young Long-tails. One 
flock of Eiders which I found in the Moray Firth, where they were a great rarity, were 
so unsuspicious that I threw empty cartridge cases at the only male I wished to shoot, so 
as to force him to rise that I might kill him with the 12-bore. 
If the naturalist is anxious to obtain a series of sea-ducks in the British Isles, the best 
way is to go to the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland and hire a small sea-going 
sailing-boat of broad beam and capable of withstanding rough weather. In the Orkneys 
and Shetlands are the finest types of men and the best sailors in Great Britain, and it is not 
difficult to pick a couple of these hardy semi-Scandinavians who will accompany him as 
much for their own personal pleasure as any monetary gain. These men enter into the sport 
of sea-shooting in a way that is as refreshing as it is unusual, and you have only to treat 
them well to make them your life-long friends and correspondents. I will only narrate one 
instance, to show what splendid fellows they are. 
In 1880 I went to the Orkneys for the first time and employed a shoemaker in Strom- 
ness, named James Sutherland, for a fortnight, to come out on the sea and show me the 
best places for ducks and wild birds. The weather was very rough, and we only went to 
sea once or twice in that time, although he accompanied me every day in tramping or 
waiting in places on the coast. When I left I had the greatest difficulty in getting him to 
accept the sum of ^3 which I offered him. After an hour's argument he put the money in 
his pocket, said " Good-bye," and I thought I had seen the last of him for that year at least. 
At four the next morning the mail-boat left, and just as we were pushing off from the land- 
ing-stage, a weird figure with few clothes on appeared on the wharf and flung a parcel into 
the boat addressed to me. As he vanished he called out, " A canna tak' it. A canna sleep. 
A've din naething for it." 
Dear old Jimmy Sutherland and his assistant Tom Sinclair managed my boat for ten 
years after that, and at the end of each season I always had the same difficulty to make him 
take any money, as he always said it was such a pleasure to go shooting. Jimmy was a 
splendid viking of 6 feet 4 inches, and could handle a boat in a calm or a rough sea in a way 
I have never seen equalled. When not engaged in shooting, fishing, or bootmaking, he 
was, as he himself remarked, " much addicted to moral philosophy." The shooting of sea- 
ducks is a much more difficult business than it would seem to be. If the sea was always 
calm and the birds plentiful, and they would sit to within 80 yards, all would be easy, but 
in the northern isles it blows nine days out of ten. Ducks are not always numerous, and 
generally live on the edge of rough tideways which cause the boat to leap about in disorderly 
fashion just as the shot has to be taken. Sea-duck shooting is essentially snap-shooting, 
and the man who is successful at it must be accustomed to adapt his body to the rolling 
movement of the boat, to shoot straight and quickly with either 8 or 12-bore. He must be 
