TIIK IIOOPEK. 
231 
within a few feet of one anotlier, and being Ihlly aware how 
seldom a ball from hisgnn took the precise course intended, he 
resolved to aim exactly between them, and thus make sure of 
one. For once Ids aim proved accurate, and tlie birds Hew off 
untouched. Some hue o])portunities of obtaining a good shot 
are often missed through tlie inability, or perliaps the unwill- 
ingness, of the gun carrier to fire without a rest. Very few of 
the old ‘'crack shots” are now living, but it is still amusing to 
hear tliem conclude their accounts of the numerous seals and 
swans they have killed (at a time, by the way, when the 
islands swarmed with both), with the most earnest exhort- 
ations to disregard fashion, and always use a Hint gun, but 
luith a rest, at the same time taking it as a matter of course that 
the usual average of from half a minute to a minute should be 
allowed for the process of taking aim. It is strange that, in 
spite of such training, those of the next generation who are bold 
enough to disregard paternal advice in these matters are among 
the best shots in the kingdom, though sore is the rebuke they 
occasionally receive for their “contemptible pride” in refusing 
to use a rest for the gun when opportunity offers. 
Many of the Hoopers which are killed in Shetland are found 
to have the webs of the feet artificially notched and bored. 
This is said to be the method of marking them in Iceland, where 
this species is kept in a half domesticated state. An egg of 
the Hooper, brought from Iceland a few years ago, is equally 
rounded at both ends, and of a dingy white, faintly tinged with 
green ; the length exactly four inches, the breadth two inches 
and ten lines. 
I am not quite sure that the tarsi and feet are ever perfectly 
and uniformly black, although they become so very soon after 
death. In all newly-killed examples which I have examined, 
the sides of the tarsi and edges of the toes were very dark olive 
brown ; the claws blackish grey, the claw of the hind toe nearly 
white at the tip. The black on the sides of tlie bill joins the 
yellow abruptly, but where it partly surrounds the bare yellow 
spot on the forehead it is distributed in the form of small dots. 
