2 THE WILD-FOWLER. 



It is one of the most ancient, as well as the most natural, arts 

 known to mankind ; and in every nation has called forth the earliest 

 cunning- of the people. There ai-e frequent allusions to it in the 

 Scriptures : more particularly in the Old Testament, as to the " snares 

 of the fowler J " and there can be no doubt but such were used many 

 centuries before Christ. 



As different species of birds have different habits, so the method of 

 taking- them differs, in accordance with such habits. Such portions of 

 the art as relate to the capture of wild-fowl and fen-birds, are by far 

 the most attractive, varied, and extensive : and, to those particular 

 branches, our discoiu'se will be more especially devoted. 



It is a pleasant and useful diversion, abounding with varieties as 

 attractive and instructive as they are exciting and exhilarating-.* 



There is no branch of the art of fowling possessing so great an 

 amount of attraction, or requiring such consummate skill, as is ne- 

 cessary for proficiency in the art of capturing water- fowl; and, besides, 

 there is no one which offers so many examples of instinct. 



It appears, however, to have been a sport distasteful (because, pro- 

 bably, very imperfectly understood) to that earliest of writers upon 

 sporting-literature — Dame Juliana Barnes, alias Berners. That anti- 

 quated and distinguished sportswoman, draws a very forlorn and 

 miserable picture of an ancient fowler ; showing him up, in her pecu- 

 liar style of language, as the very object of pity, disappointment, and 

 misery ;t but her remarks can only be read as applying to taking- 

 birds with nets, gins, and such like contrivances — other portions of 

 her work being dissertations specially in praise of hawking, as a 

 distinct branch of the pursuit ; and in which she appears to have been 

 a proficient, and evidently familiar with the art of capturing wild-fowl 

 with rapacious birds. 



Both ancient and modern fowlers agree as to the necessity of 

 knowing something of the haunts as well as the habits of wild-fowl, 

 before success can be confidently looked for in any branch of the pursuit. 



* Burton, in Us " Anatomy of Melancholy," speaking of " Exercise rectified," 

 says : " Fowling is more troublesome, but all on't as delightsome to some sorts of 

 men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, ginnes, stiings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, 

 stalking-horses, setting dogs, coy-ducks, &c., or otherwise." 



t " The dysporte and game of fowlynge me semyth moost symple, for in the 

 wynter season the fowler spedyth not but in the most hardest and coldest weder ; 

 whyche is greuous. For when he wolde goo to his gynnes he maye not for colde. 

 Many a gynno and many a snare ho makyth, yet soryly dooth he fare. At morn 

 tydo in the dewe he is weeto shote vnto his taylle." — The Bake of St. Alhans ; by 

 JtiUana Ba/rnes : a.d. 1496. 



