We used light wood to make balls, so as not
to injure each other. The fastest boy was chosen to play the ostrich,
and would be sent off to roam ostrich-fashion on the plain, pretending
to pick clover from the ground as he walked in a stooping attitude, or
making little runs and waving his arms about like wings, then standing
erect and mimicking the hollow booming sounds the cock bird emits when
calling the flock together.
The hunters would then come on the scene and the chase begin, the
ostrich putting forth all his speed, doubling to this side and that,
and occasionally thinking to escape by hiding, dropping upon the
ground in the shelter of a cardoon thistle, only to jump up again when
the shouts of the hunters drew near, to rush on as before. At
intervals the bolas would come whirling through the air, and he would
dodge or avoid them by a quick turn, but eventually he would be hit
and the thong would wind itself about his legs and down he would come.
Then the hunters would gather round him, and pulling out their knives
begin operations by cutting off his head; then the body would be cut
up, the wings and breast removed, these being the best parts for
eating, and there would be much talk about the condition and age of
the bird, and so on. Then would come the most exciting part of the
proceedings - the cutting the gizzard open and the examination of its
varied contents; and by and by there would be an exultant shout, and
one of the boys would pretend to come on a valuable find - a big silver
coin perhaps, a _patacon,_ and there would be a great gabble over
it and perhaps a fight for its possession, and they would wrestle and
roll on the grass, struggling for the imaginary coin. That finished,
the dead ostrich would get up and place himself among the hunters,
while the boy who had captured him with his bolas would then play
ostrich, and the chase would begin anew.
When this game was played I was always chosen as first ostrich, as at
that time I could easily outrun and out-jump any of my gauche
playmates, even those who were three or four years older than myself.
Nevertheless, these games - horse-racing, sham fights, and ostrich-
hunting, and the like - gave me no abiding satisfaction; they were no
sooner over than I would go back, almost with a sense of relief, to my
solitary rambles and bird-watching, and to wishing that the day would
come when my masterful brother would allow me to use a gun and
practise the one sport of wild-duck shooting I desired.
That was soon to come, and will form the subject of the ensuing
chapter.
CHAPTER XXI
WILD-FOWLING ADVENTURES
My sporting brother and the armoury - I attend him on his shooting
expeditions - Adventure with Golden Plover - A morning after Wild Duck -
Our punishment - I learn to shoot - My first gun - My first wild duck - My
ducking tactics - My gun's infirmities - Duck-shooting with a
blunderbus - Ammunition runs out - An adventure with Rosy-bill Duck -
Coarse gunpowder and home-made shot - The war danger comes our way - We
prepare to defend the house - The danger over and my brother leaves
home.
I have said I was not allowed to shoot before the age of ten, but the
desire had come long before that; I was no more than seven when I used
to wish to be a big, or at all events a bigger, boy, so that, like my
brother, I too might carry a gun and shoot big wild birds. But he said
"No" very emphatically, and there was an end of it.
He had virtually made himself the owner of all the guns and weapons
generally in the house. These included three fowling-pieces, a rifle,
an ancient Tower musket with a flint-lock - doubtless dropped from the
dead hands of a slain British soldier in one of the fights in Buenos
Ayres in 1807 or 1808; a pair of heavy horse pistols, and a ponderous,
formidable-looking old blunderbuss, wide at the mouth as a tea-cup
saucer. His, too, were the swords. To our native neighbours this
appeared an astonishingly large collection of weapons, for in those
days they possessed no fire-arm except, in some rare instances, a
carbine, brought home by a runaway soldier and kept concealed lest the
authorities should get wind of it.
As the next best thing to doing the shooting myself, I attended my
brother in his expeditions, to hold his horse or to pick up and carry
the birds, and was deeply grateful to him for allowing me to serve him
in this humble capacity. We had some exciting adventures together. One
summer day he came rushing home to get his gun, having just seen an
immense flock of golden plover come down at a spot a mile or so from
home. With his gun and a sack to put the birds in, he mounted his
pony, I with him, as our ponies were accustomed to carry two and even
three at a pinch. We found the flock where he had seen it alight -
thousands of birds evenly scattered, running about busily feeding on
the wet level ground.
The bird I speak of is the _Charadrius dominicanca_, which breeds in
Arctic America and migrates in August and September to the plains of
La Plata and Patagonia, so that it travels about sixteen thousand
miles every year. In appearance it is so like our golden plover,
_Charadrius pluvialis_, as to be hardly distinguishable from it.
