Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/341

Rh a pack of beagles in full cry. The Brent Geese ("brants" or "Scotch geese" of the east coast fishermen) come to feed with the wigeon on the banks where the ribbon-like grass-wrack grows. Sometimes, as they stand in rank, looming large in the mist, they look like a regiment of soldiers, and often a favourite shoal is black with them. The old gunner who puts out in pursuit tells us that six Grey Geese passed over his head at daybreak as he was laying down lines for codling. Presently we hear the boom of his big stanchion gun, which moves on a swivel in the stern of his punt. Some of the men who make a living in this way develop powers of eyesight, and an intuitive knowledge of the habits of the birds which almost pass belief. Of course even the uninitiated may pronounce a distant speck to be diver or grebe if it swims with straight, upright neck, in figure and in outline entirely different from a duck. The eye picks out a parti-coloured Sheld-duck from amongst fowl of less boldly-contrasted plumage, and the shill whistling of the Wigeon betrays them from afar where they feed with the geese on the outer shoals. Parties of dark-plumaged ducks which dive incessantly near inshore, i.e., above the mussel-beds, are likely to be either Scaup or Scoters. These last are the "black ducks" of the fisherman, as his "dun-birds" are the red-headed Pochards. Of course the common Wild Duck or Mallard is familiar enough upon the coast, especially