SHOOTING ON THE COAST BY DAYLIGHT. 275 



These men, whose " honest " calling* the colonel defends, are not 

 always so particular as to their honesty as may be supposed. I 

 have seen them lie in ambush an hour and upwards at the foot 

 of a game-preserve ; when hares, rabbits, or pheasants, which 

 mig-ht chance to creep out upon the shore, were quickly despatched 

 with a charge from the punt-gun ; sometimes four or five at a shot. 

 A few of the farmers' turnips also occasionally form part of the result 

 of their punting- excursions, for they never approve of returning* home 

 with an empty game bag. 



Again, the colonel's jealousy knows no bounds. Speaking of a 

 season when the winter was very severe, and the birds abimdant, he 

 remarks — " Whenever there was a pretty breeze or a fine day there 

 was scarcely an acre of sea or land that was not infested by boat- 

 sailing bullet-poppers and blue-jacket shore-snobs." 



The laughable invectives of the colonel, too truly bespeak his un- 

 generous feelings towards those whom many other sportsmen would 

 have regarded in a more considerate light, or whose doings they pro- 

 bably would have thought too insignificant for notice. 



