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His cares as a herder, vacheur, vaché, he called it, were wherever his slender-horned herds might roam or his stallions lead their mares in search of the sweetest herbage; and when rains filled the maraises, and the cold nor'westers blew from Texas and the sod was spongy with much water, and he went out for feathered game, the numberless mallards, black ducks, gray ducks, teal with sometimes the canvas-back and the poules-d'eau the water-hens and the rails, and the cache-cache the snipe were as likely to settle or rise just before his own house as elsewhere, and the most devastating shot that hurtled through those feathered multitudes was that sent by her husband hers her own possessive case belonging to her.

On the long artificial lake, with innumerable rushy nooks and water-lilies and coverture of leaves floating flat and bright in the sun, the half-tame wild duck and shy water-hens had remote little worlds, and flew and splashed when all Becket was abed, quite as if the human spirit, with its monkey-tricks and its little divine flame, had not yet been born.

Amongst other animals shootable are the native bear a sluggish creature looking like a small bear; the bandicoot, a small animal with a pig's head and snout; the native cat; cockatoos, parrots, eagles, hawks, owls, parroquets, wild turkey, quail, native pheasants, teal, native companions, water-hens, and the black swan and the opossum. Of these the wild turkey affords the best fun.

They were tall, long-legged, slender-bodied creatures, and easily distinguished by both Karl and Caspar, as belonging to the family of rallidae or water-hens. There could be no doubt that they were walking on the water sometimes slowly, at other times in a quick run and, what was even more unaccountable than this, they were seen at times to stand still upon the water!

There was plenty of animal life, also, in and around this stream, to interest the hunters, who were now obliged to exert themselves a little to make head against the sluggish current. Water-hens were innumerable, and other wild-fowl flew or paddled about, enjoying, apparently, a most luxuriant existence, while brown ant-hills were suggestive of exceedingly busy life below as well as above ground.

In this guise all three proceeded round the shore of the lake, to that side where they would be nearest the bed of lilies. The water-hens, seeing them make their approach, rose from their perch upon the leaves, and fluttered off to seek a more secure shelter among the sedge. The aquatic gleaners at once waded in; and commenced picking off the pods, and shelling them into their rush baskets.

The banks of the winding creek were beautified with the malaguetta pepper, the ipomsea, the hibiscus, and a yellow flower growing upon an aquatic plant like a magnified water-cress. Animal life became somewhat less rare; we saw sandpipers, hawks, white and black fish-eagles, and long-legged water-hens, here supposed to give excellent sport.

The parent foxes do not, as a rule, kill much game in the wood itself, except when the cubs are young. They leave it early in the evening and prowl round the outsides, over the hill, and round the Celtic camp above, and beat the river-bank for a great distance up and down stream, catching water-hens and rats. At sunrise they return to the wood, and, as a rule, go to earth.

Again we came to marshy ground, filled with royal duck, teal, water-hens, snipe, etc, and forgot the pangs of past hunger. At such places we would fill our horns and drink the putrid water, or take off our shirts and wash them and our bodies. Mud had to serve for soap. Our washing, spread out on the reeds, would soon dry, and off we would start for another stage.

On the shores and on the islets, strutted wild ducks, pelicans, water-hens, red-beaks, philedons, furnished with a tongue like a brush, and one or two specimens of the splendid menura, the tail of which expands gracefully like a lyre.