Fowung Reminiscences 139 



FOWLING REMINISCENCES. 



A TRUE sportsman is entirely devoted to his 

 speciality of wildfowling, and actually asserts 

 that "punting is the art of pursuing wild- 

 fowl in a small boat termed gunning - punt " ; 

 whereas punting is generally held to mean the 

 science of sitting in a huge flat-bottomed vessel, in 

 company with two or three other old gentlemen 

 who bob for gudgeon. The boat of the wildfowler, in 

 reality, is built in proportion to the size of the punt- 

 gun it is meant to accommodate — a formidable weapon, 

 carrying a pound of shot at a charge, and fired from the 

 head of the boat, not from the shoulder, but like a piece 

 of ordnance. You have to lie upon your stomach, it 

 seems, at the bottom of the boat, and propel it, face 

 foremost, with a pair of small sculls — an exertion tre- 

 mendous indeed, yet quite insufficient to keep you warm 

 in a winter's midnight upon an exposed tidal river, 

 When the tide is low, you must get out and push your 

 boat before you upon the mud ; and if you have not got 

 ' ' splashers " on (thin boards about eighteen inches 

 square lashed to the soles of your boots), you had better 

 be particular where you tread, since, if you fall, the 

 greater probability is that you will never get up again. 

 The same precaution has, of course, to be observed in 

 pursuing wounded birds upon the treacherous ooze. 



The only practicable method of getting up from a fall 

 on the ooze is by rolling over on the back so as to draw 

 the arms out of the mud, and then by placing one foot, 

 with the splasher, firmly and flatly on the ooze, at the 

 same time pressing both hands on the knee of the leg 

 so raised, and giving a cautious but determined spring, 

 a man may succeed in bringing himself again to his 

 legs. But it is useless to attempt getting up by resting 

 the hands on the mud, as one would do on hard ground ; 

 the arms only sink deeper and deeper, and, if the mud 

 be very rotten, the fallen individual finds it impossible 



