Mark drew the match down into the priming, the shot widening as it went, struck up the water like a shower round the moorhen, which though only hit by one pellet, fell and dived: Pan following. The bird came up to breathe. Pan saw her, and yelped. He touched ground and ran plunging in the water, cantering, lifting his fore-paws and beating the water, for he could not run in the same way as ashore. He caught another glimpse of the bird, dashed to the spot, and thrust his nose and head right under, but missed her. By now the raft had come up, and they beat the weeds with their poles. The moorhen doubled into the bamboos and sedges, but they were so thick they hindered her progress, and Pan snapped her up in a moment. From Bamboo Island, Bevis poled round to five or six banks covered with sedges, and Mark had another shot, but this time, perhaps a little too confident, he missed altogether. There did not seem any probability of their shooting any more, so they returned towards New Formosa, when Mark wanted to have one more look round the lower and more level end of that island. Bevis poled that way, and Mark, seeing something black with a white bill moving in the weeds, fired--a very long shot--and felt sure that he had wounded the bird, though for a minute it disappeared. Presently Pan brought them a young coot. Mark had now shot three moorhens, a coot, and a dab-chick, but what pleased him most was the moorhen he had hit while flying, though but one shot had taken effect. He could not have shot so many with so cumbrous a gun had not the water-fowl been nearly all young, and had not some time gone by since the last raid had been made upon these sedgy covers; so that, as is the case on all uninhabited islands, the birds were easy to approach. Finding that the sun-dial still only gave the time as half-past twelve, Mark wanted to try spinning again for jack if Bevis was not too tired of poling on the raft. Bevis was willing, so they started again, and he poled slowly along the edge of the broad bands of weeds, while Mark drew the bait through the water. He had one success, bringing a jack of about two pounds on deck, but no more. Then, returning to New Formosa, they visited the wires set for kangaroos, which had been forgotten. One had been pushed down, but nothing was caught. The wires were moved and set up in other runs, with more caution not to touch the grass or the run--the kangaroo’s footpath--with the hand, and the loops were made a little larger. If the loop is too small the rabbit pushes the wire aside; so that it had better be just a little too large, that the head may be certain to go through, when the shoulders will draw the noose tight. They did not sit down to dinner till past two o’clock, having had a long morning, no part of which had been lost in cooking.