On Water.—­Boat-shooting.—­A landing-net should be taken in the boat, as Colonel Hawker well advises, to pick up the dead birds as they float on the water, while the boat passes quickly by them.

Shooting over Water.—­When shooting from a river-bank without boat or dog, take a long light string with a stick tied to one end of it, the other being held in the hand:  by throwing The stick beyond the floating bird, it can gradually be drawn in.  The stick should be 1 1/2 or 2 feet long, 2 inches in diameter, and notched at either end, and attached to the hand-line by a couple of strings, each 6 feet long, tied round either notch.  Thus, the hand-line terminates in a triangle (see the figure I have given, of a rude Stirrup), the two sides of which are of string, with the stick for a base.  A stout stick of this kind can be thrown to a great distance; either it may be “heaved,” as a sailor’s Deep-sea Lead, or it may be whirled round the head, and then let fly.

Night-shooting.—­Tie a band of white paper round the muzzle of the gun, behind the sight.  Mr. Andersson, who has had very great experience, ties the paper, not round the smooth barrel, but over the sight and all; and, if the sight does not happen to be a large one, he ties a piece of thick string round the barrel, or uses other similar contrivance, to tilt up the fore end of the paper.  By this means, the paper is not entirely lost sight of at the moment when the aim is being taken.  Mr. Andersson also pinches the paper into a ridge along the middle of the gun, to ensure a more defined foresight.

Nocturnal Animals.—­There are a large number of night-feeding animals, upon whose flesh a traveller might easily support himself, but of whose existence he would have few indications by daylight observation only.  The following remarks of Professor Owen, in respect to Australia are very suggestive:—­“All the marsupial animals—­and it is one of their curious peculiarities—­are nocturnal.  Even the kangaroo, which is the least so, is scarcely ever seen feeding out on the plains in broad daylight:  it prefers the early morning dawn, or the short twilight; and, above all, the bright moonlight nights.  With regard to most of the other Australian forms of marsupial animals, they are most strictly nocturnal; so that, if a traveller were not aware of that peculiarity, he might fancy himself traversing a country destitute of the mammalian grade of animal life.  If, however, after a weary day’s journey, he could be awakened, and were to look out about the moonlight glade or scrub, or if he were to set traps by night, he would probably be surprised to find how great a number of interesting forms of mammalian animals were to Be met with, in places where there was not the slightest appearance of them in the daytime.”

Battues.—­In Sweden, where hundreds of people are marshalled, each man has a number, and the number is chalked upon his hat.

Scarecrows.—­A string with feathers tied to it at intervals, like the tail of a boy’s kite, will scare most animals of the deer tribe, by their fluttering; and, in want of a sufficient force of men, passes may be closed by this contrivance.  The Swedes use “lappar,” viz.  Pieces of canvas, of half the height of a man, painted in glaring colours and left to flutter from a line.