GOOSE SHOOTING. 119 



execution at times. No one who does not thoroughly 

 understand the tides, the ice, and the weather, should 

 attempt this punting business ; for to be swept out to sea 

 at this season of the year is certain death. 



Although wild geese are very partial to the seaboard, 

 they cannot live without fresh water ; this they procure in 

 the spring on the surface of the ice ; but in the fall of the 

 year, when there is no ice, they have to seek for it, once 

 at least in the twenty-four hours, in the inland ponds, 

 swamps, and lakes. In very stormy weather, when the 

 ice is rough, and in spring tides, when their usual feeding 

 grounds are submerged, they take refuge altogether in 

 these more sheltered spots. Perhaps in the course of the 

 autumn there are half-a-dozen days of this sort when 

 really good shooting can be got. I have been out more 

 than once for ten days without getting anything worth 

 mentioning, and on the eleventh I have quite made up 

 for lost time. Can my reader picture to himself a vast 

 swamp, miles in extent, surrounded by forest and remote 

 from human abode, full of little lakes, ponds, gullies, reeds, 

 long grass, stumps of trees, bushes, and " rampikes " ? 

 The time is evening, at the close of an October day. The 

 north-east wind is howling dismally over this dreary waste, 

 bringing now and then a shower of rain or sleet. In the 

 centre of this howling wilderness may be observed the 

 gunner of the period, squatting in the driest spot he can 

 find, his retriever at his feet, and surrounded by geese and 

 ducks and empty cartridges. How he ever got to this 

 spot appears a mystery at first ; but look behind that bush, 

 and you will see a log canoe or a catamaran, in which he 

 has managed to paddle laboriously through the swamp. 



