CHAPTER XXXVII 



SUNDRY INCIDENTS OF FOWL AND 

 FOWLING 



The foregoing chapters describe the ordinary daily life 

 and habits of our coast wildfowl ; but denizens of such 

 bleak and exposed haunts are necessarily subject to all 

 the vicissitudes of our winter weather, which often vary 

 their daily routine. Thus, during- very rough seas, wild- 

 fowl are unable to "weather it" outside, and are driven 

 to seek shelter elsewhere. At such times the estuaries 

 may sometimes be seen fairly packed with wigeon, etc., 

 at midday ; but one can only watch them covetously 

 through the telescope, for no gunning-punt can stand the 

 sea. 



The effect of sudden gales are interesting as showing 

 that these are sometimes quite unforeseen by the fowl 

 — usually fairly accurate weather-prophets. This the 

 following couple of extracts from old shooting note-books 

 will serve to illustrate: — "January 5th. — Many hundreds 

 of ducks left for sea early this morning; but about 9 a.m., 

 a sudden easterly squall coming away and knocking up a 

 nasty sea, the whole of them returned inside for shelter. 

 Shot one wigeon drake as they passed up, but there was 

 too much sea on to follow them." Another incident was 

 with geese, and occurred during very severe weather. It 



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