WEATHER AND EXPENSES 239 
sport which must be only followed at times when the weather 
permits. Windy weather upsets nearly all plans of the punt- 
shooter. The times to be chosen are those when there is little 
or no wind, yet when the ravages of extreme cold and other 
inclemencies are most severely felt by the birds. But these 
times occur seldom with other conditions entirely favourable, for 
after storms tidal waters run high and rough for days. How- 
ever, there are lulls which do happen, and if these are taken 
advantage of at the proper stages of the tide, good sport may 
follow. Of course, at the actual moment, weather is often bad 
to judge, but the time of all times (which is one which must 
be partly foretold or taken thereon) for a good shot is a day’s 
lull in, say, a half-dozen days’ storm, with the tide at a stage 
which suits the locality best. At such times, especially during 
a hard winter, fowl ‘‘pack up” and sleep, resting on land. 
The poor birds are tired with being driven about in the storm. 
So wary are real wildfowl that, unless these advantages (which 
may seem rather mean to the uninitiated) are made the most of 
by the fowler, the season’s bag with the big gun, we can 
assure him, will be a very small one. Chosen or favourite sites 
for ducks resting at such times, are along the sides of shallow 
creeks. These latter afford but scanty shelter for the birds, yet 
thither they huddle together and sleep, even the sentry dropping 
off. True, there is little shelter, yet it is evidently enough for 
the hardy wildfowl of the mighty estuaries. On certain occa- 
sions so fearless or heedless are they (all-gone-to-bed sort 
of thing) of the punt’s approach, that doubt is sure to arise in 
the beginner’s mind as to whether they are really wildfowl or 
not. Sometimes, with careful and noiseless manceuvring of the 
punt, not a single bird will see its approach, and, as old 
Tom C. used to remark of such shots, ‘‘ They’d never wakken 
alive.”” So much for the general remarks ve punting weather. 
The more detailed, or, as we might put it, the scientific 
calculations of weather we must leave to the punter himself. 
