HINTS ON PUNTING TO FOWL 263 
fired from a punt. The gunner in a punt shoots along and 
over his birds, and if these latter are massed in a huge pack 
on the water nearly every pellet tells. It is only reasonable to 
think that punt-guns, like all other shot-throwing weapons, 
kill most fowl when set low. Of course, as we have pointed 
out, there is a limit to low setting, on accouut of the trajectory 
of the missiles, or, in other words, a suitable height wherefrom 
the correct elevation can be given the gun so as to counteract 
gravitation acting on the shot charge. 
The benefit found in the killing of a large number of birds 
by firing a gun set low, can be experimentally exemplified by 
trying an ordinary shoulder, or what is called by puntsmen 
a ‘‘hand,” gun at birds (paper or cardboard ones) from the 
shoulder, and then from a low-set stand. The gun in the 
latter position will hit three times as many birds as when 
fired from the shoulder, and perhaps more, if the birds 
are placed on water. We would remind our readers that our 
remarks are from sheer experience, and not from conjecture or 
theory, as may perhaps be thought by those in doubt. Always 
kneel to fire a large shoulder gun at sitting fowl. When dis- 
charging a punt-gun at sitting birds, always prefer to be a little 
over (and, if the distance is great, a lot over), rather than 
under or dead on the mark. Ducks jump when they see the 
smoke, if they are on the alert, and so quickly do they spring 
high into the air that often they are well clear of the shot 
before it reaches anywhere near them. Although good old 
black powder shoots hard and strong (and it is all we have for 
our large fowling-pieces), it can only be termed slow. when 
compared with many of our modern nitros. The shot from a 
punt-gun takes fully three times as long to reach a mark 
a hundred yards away as the shot from a nitro 12-bore does to 
reach an object fifty yards from the gun. 
