34 
SHORE BIRDS. 
lecting the best part of the flock to kill the greatest number, 
lend a charm which is found in no other kind of sport. Alas! 
however on this particular occasion there was error in the 
calculations. The Commissioner’s prophecy, like Vennor’s, „ 
was simply the contrary of what it ought to have been. In 
spite of winds and waves, the movements of the planets and 
the conjunctions of the constellations, there was no flight on 
the ninth day of August, 1881. Seth Green having armed 
himself with the ship’s glass, not the customary glass of 
yachting parties, and surveyed the horizon from the moment 
it was visible till the sun appeared, announced that there was 
not a bird anywhere, and utterly refused to wait for them to 
come from some “undiscovered country,” while there was 
possible fishing to be had anywhere in the land of the living. 
As he knew nothing of this kind of shooting, it was only 
natural that he should make up his mind promptly and the 
Commissioner surrendered to his views, with the saving 
clause, grumblingly uttered, “that if there had been thou¬ 
sands of birds they never would have come near a blind made 
of seaweed and high as a hill.” So the “white wings” were 
spread and the Au Revoir leaped away on her course toward 
the west. 
