CHAPTER I 



WHAT WILDFOWLING REALLY IS 



Punctually at the beginning of the shooting season of 

 each year, a certain type of journalist permits himself a little 

 printed scorn as to the shooting of "tame pheasants," and 

 so forth. Not knowing a pheasant from an owl, a partridge 

 from a wild duck, or a sporting gun from a service rifle, he 

 nevertheless talks glibly of "alleged sport" with perfect 

 satisfaction to himself, and sighs for the "good old days" 

 when drives were unknown, when "sportsmen were sports- 

 men," and other such twaddle. 



They do not know that the modern reaping machine 

 shears the ground so close that walking up birds becomes 

 impossible in many instances. They do not realise that 

 driven birds come past the sportsmen at such various speeds, 

 heights, and angles that they offer far more difficult — and so 

 more sporting — shots than are ever obtainable when birds 

 rise at one's feet ; they are quite unable to appreciate the 

 enormous skill, technical experience, and knowledge of the 

 habits of birds required to organise an ordinary partridge 

 drive. 



Shooting, which such people so easily imagine to be the 

 easiest of all sports, and indeed hardly worth the name of 

 "sport," is, on the contrary, the most difficult and most 

 engrossing of all. This book is not written for the general 

 public in the first instance, but it is conceivable that it will 

 fall into the hands of some of them — which is one of the 

 reasons for the above remarks. But, it may be asked, what 



