WHAT WILDFOWLING REALLY IS 17 



ing description. The strange spots where he finds himself; the lonely 

 nature of his surroundings ; the quaint cries he hears when the fowl 

 and shore birds are about ; the briny smell of the sea ; the ever- 

 varying tide ; the now rough and now smooth wind ; the difference in 

 the same spots when seen first by daylight and then visited at night ; 

 the self-reliance which the wildfowl shooter must place upon his 

 individual resources, and his perpetual struggle against all the 

 elements combined — everything tends to make of the pursuit one 

 which I have no hesitation in calling the most manly and the most 

 fascinating of all the pursuits which the sportsman may addict 

 himself to." 



How true this is the wildfowler alone knows. To him 

 many of the secrets of nature are disclosed. On the far 

 saltings, on the lonely marshes of the sea, he has wonderful 

 moments. 



Dawns that are august in their splendour rise for him in his 

 lonely eagerness. Keen white moonlights for him irradiate a 

 world unknown to ordinary folk. He floats on dark, mys- 

 terious waterways, hearing sounds, whispers, strange cries 

 and calls that no one else ever hears. 



Is there a more wonderful sound in the whole of nature 

 than that of a great skein of geese upon the wing? I think 

 not. 



Nearer and nearer it comes : the deep baying notes, the 

 high shrill calling, like a pack of ghostly hounds in the dark- 

 ling sky ! The thrill of it is incommunicable, the music in- 

 comparable, and at last the full notes rush into being, and the 

 great birds are all around. He who has heard the melancholy 

 notes of the curlew at dawn when the marshes are waking, 

 who listens to the mysterious whistle of the widgeon, as they 

 pass high over his punt, and for whom a sedge of herons 

 make their harsh calling at evening, knows much that is 

 denied to other men. 



The fowler has his own ritual, etiquette, and phraseology 

 also. If he is punctilious in preserving the traditions of his 



