It is nine o'clock, the pile of dead has mounted up, but the "flight" is slackening. Already I see our mounted keepers (who have hitherto stood grouped on an islet two miles away) separate and ride forth to set the ducks once more in motion. At this precise moment one remembers two things--both that wretched breakfast at 3 A.M., and the luxuries that lie at hand, almost awash among the reeds. Ducks pass by unscathed for a full half-hour, while such quiet reigns in "No. 1" that tawny water-shrews climb confidingly up the reeds of my screen. Meanwhile the efforts of our drivers were becoming apparent in a renewal of flighting ducks; but we would here emphasise the fact that these second and artificially-produced flights are never so effective from a fowler's point of view as the earlier, natural movements of the game. For the ducks thus disturbed come, as the Spanish keepers put it, _obligados_ and not of their own free-will. Hence they all pass high--many far above gunshot--and not even the attraction that our fleet of "decoys" (for we have now stuck up the whole of the morning's spoils to deceive their fellows) will induce more than a limited proportion, and those only the smaller bands, to descend from their aërial altitude. The "movement" of these masses nevertheless affords another of those spectacular displays that we must at least try to describe. For though none of their sky-high armies will pass within gunshot--or ten gunshots--yet one cannot but be struck with amazement when the whole vault of heaven above presents a quivering vision of wings--shaded, seamed, streaked, and spotted from zenith to horizon. Then the multiplied pulsation of wings is distinctly perceptible--a singular sensation. One remembers it when, perhaps an hour later, you become conscious of its recurrence. But now the heavens are clear! Not a single flight crosses the sky--not one, that is, within sight. But up above, beyond the limits of human vision, there pass unseen hosts, and _theirs_ is that pulsation you feel. The passage of these sky-scrapers is actuated by no puny manoeuvre of ours. They are travellers on through-routes. Perhaps the last land (or water) they touched was Dutch or Danish; and they will next alight (within an hour) in Africa. Already at their altitude they can see, spread out, as it were, at their feet, the marshes and meres of Morocco. Although nominally describing that first day in Las Nuevas (and, so far as facts go, adhering rigidly thereto), yet we are endeavouring to concentrate in fewest words the actual lessons of many subsequent years of practical experience. Thus the pick-up on that day (though it may have numbered a couple of hundred ducks) we refrain from recording in this attempt to convey the concrete while avoiding detail.