and the exposure to severe cold is so great that it is a trying sport for an elderly man.
The ducks, however, do not leave one much time for reminiscences, as by the time I have taken my stand in a reed shelter or hide by the side of the fleet, the splash of the ducks as they break the thin ice in settling is so plain that I know they are not far off and that others will pitch to them. With eyes and ears intently on the alert I wait a moment longer and can just make out some ducks against the eastern sky as they drop out of the dim light towards the water. A double shot brings down one and then I hear them rising all round me and make a successful right and left at a small flock behind me, which I gather at once, as ducks, if not killed dead, will soon hide themselves in the rushes.
Others keep coming in and I miss one or two shots in the bad light and wing another which falls on the other side of the water, My friend is getting shots in another hide further down the fleet, and keeps the ducks on the move, It is rapidly getting light when a flock of pochards, or dun- birds as they are called on the coast, come rushing over and leave a brace of their number behind them. The ducks, however, have already taken alarm and are off to seek a quieter resting-place, so I walk round the fleet to pick up my winged birds, and on the way get a lovely rocketing shot at a small bunch of teal very high up to which one bird falls, and pick up another single one, probably touched by the same shot, which springs from a ditch on my way back to the farm. By this time it is broad day¬ light and the partridges are beginning to fly off their roosting-places in the marshes to the young lucerne-field which seems to provide them with ample food here in default of corn. I leave them till after breakfast, which is now ready, and I am sure no one in England enjoys a better breakfast with a better appetite than we do. Just as we have finished, the shepherd comes in saying that two of the ewes which were all right last night are drowned in a ditch, and he suspects that they have been driven and frightened by a dog from a barge which was lying on Paglesham side of the island. I suspect the bargees took advantage of the moon and came ashore to catch a hare, which they do when they get a chance. But even if we knew who they were there is nothing to be done, as however sure we might be, we could prove nothing. These Kent ewes, however, bred on the marshes and better adapted for wintering on them than any other breed of sheep, will seldom or never get into a ditch unless they are driven hard, and though we lose a few weakly lambs every year in the marsh ditches, it is the first time I have had any strong healthy ewes drowned.
After breakfast I go round the farm with my gun, taking the shepherd and carter, who are the only men now regularly employed here in winter, and arrange for putting up fences to divide some of the newly laid down fields from those which have become established. The land is wetter than I have ever seen, it, much too wet to plough, though there is a field which must be got on with as soon as it is dry enough. I can never under¬ stand how they used to manage, when nearly the whole of this farm was under plough, to get the work done in the winter, as it is quite the most difficult land to manage I have ever had to do with, and though it will grow immense crops of wheat, oats, vetches, lucerne and clover and beans,
