WATERFOWL 



HAD these notes been written from the 

 standpoint of sport, the three familiar 

 groups of birds, which together make up this 

 world-wide aquatic family, might better 

 have borne their alternative title " wildfowl " 

 with its covert sneer at the hand-reared 

 pheasant and artificially encouraged part- 

 ridge that, between them, furnish so much 

 comfortable sport to those with no fancy for 

 the arduous business of the mudflats. It is 

 true that, of late years, the mallard has, in 

 experienced hands, made a welcome addition 

 to the bag in covert shooting, as those will 

 remember who have shot the Lockwood Beat 

 on the last day of the shoot at Nuneham ; 

 and there is historic evidence of " wild " 

 duck having been reared for purposes of 

 sport with hawks hi the reign of Charles I. 

 Yet such armchair shooting of wildfowl was 

 ignored by Colonel Hawker and the second 

 Earl of Malmesbury, both of whom, gunning 

 hi the creeks and estuaries of the south coast, 

 made immense bags of ducks and geese, 

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