238 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 



storm, renewed bad weather, likely to be worse ; mild winds 

 in winter, wet. 



All tales of sea-gulls and wild geese on the land being 

 signs of bad weather are not only common errors, but foolish, 

 or that cold winters follow hot summers, and an abundance of 

 berries being a sign of hard winter, and so on, are equally as 

 foolish. 



PUNT-SHOOTING 



Weather does indeed play many important parts in the lot 

 of a punter. He depends on it a great deal in more than 

 a few respects. In a general way the weather for punt-shoot- 

 ing is looked upon as essentially of a wintry character. This, 

 however, is not strictly correct as regards our islands, for in 

 mild winter seasons and autumn some very good sport can be 

 secured at selected times. Wintry weather, though it may not 

 play any direct part in the sport of an individual day, yet is 

 often the indirect cause of good sport during mild weather or 

 winters in our islands. We mean by this that severe weather 

 abroad is as much, or more, the cause of good sport with punt 

 and gun in our islands as local wintry effects. To give punt- 

 shooting a seasonable term, we must place it amongst the 

 sports of winter ; although, as we have said, the sport can con- 

 veniently and pleasantly be indulged in during autumn, and, 

 as there is no British law to the contrary, we must make men- 

 tion of possibilities, though at the same time adding that 

 autumn (especially early autumn) punt-shooting is rather ex- 

 ceptional than regular. Autumn is, no doubt, the best season 

 for the beginner to practise, for then he can choose more 

 genial circumstances than are likely ever to be present in mid- 

 winter. 



It must not be supposed that, when speaking of punting 

 as a winter sport, it is one that must be carried on in the 

 wildest and roughest of wintry weather. Far from this, it is a 



