(1) 59 wigeon, 3 teal 62 (2) 30 " 3 " 33 (3) 60 " 1 " 4 pintail, 4 shoveler 69 ___ Total 164 _January 31, 1905._--In three shots at wigeon, the first being half spoilt by a big black-backed gull, the authors (two guns) gathered:-- 27 + 51 + 48 = 126 wigeon. _December 29, 1893._--Santolalla (2 guns), 78 teal, besides some coots, at a single shot. _January 1894._--Laguna Dulce; three _cabrestos_ with Spanish fowlers, and two amateurs with big breech-loaders (a broadside of 5 barrels):-- 198 teal (including about a dozen wigeon). A shot made in January 1894 seems worth recording merely in respect of the numbers killed by only some _seven ounces_ of lead. An islet actually _carpeted_ with teal was our target, and two 12-bores, aided by an ancient Spanish muzzle-loader (about 10-bore), realised fifty head, to wit, forty-nine teal and one mallard-drake. Geese will rarely admit of approach to the close quarters necessary for effective work; yet just on those rare exceptional occasions we have secured (using heavy shoulder-guns) from six to a dozen greylags in a day, once or twice more than this--five at a shot being the maximum. THE STANCHION-GUN IN SPAIN In contrast with the success of the _cabresto_ system, the stancheon-gun proved a failure. So admirably adapted for punt-gunning appeared those great shallow marismas, that in 1888 we sent out the entire outfit and artillery for wildfowling afloat--a 22-foot double-handed gunning-punt and an 80-lb. gun to throw 16 oz. of shot. The little craft reached the Guadalquivir in September, but unforeseen difficulties arose. The Spanish custom-house took alarm. True, the smart little gun-boat was an entire novelty--even in the Millwall docks she had created surprise; here she was incomprehensible. No such vessel had ever floated on Spanish waters, and the official mind needed time to consider. That oracle, after weeks of cogitation, ordered the removal of the suspicious craft from the obscure port of Bonanza to the fuller light that plays on the custom-house at Seville. There, after more weeks of delay, it was decided that the white-painted six-foot barrel was "an arm of war," that "the combination of boat and gun savoured of the mechanism of war," and, finally, that "the boat could not be permitted to pass the customs until it had been registered at the Admiralty." Thus our _Boadicea_ joined the Imperial Navy of Spain. Seven months elapsed whilst these difficulties were in process of solution, and ere they were smoothed away (as difficulties in Spain, or elsewhere, do dissolve under prudent treatment), and the _Boadicea_ set free to navigate the marismas, the season had passed and the migrant fowl had returned to the north.