WEATHER AND EXPENSES 239 



sport which must be only followed at times when the weather 

 permits. Windy weather upsets nearly all plans of the punt- 

 shooter. The times to be chosen are those when there is little 

 or no wind, yet when the ravages of extreme cold and other 

 inclemencies are most severely felt by the birds. But these 

 times occur seldom with other conditions entirely favourable, for 

 after storms tidal waters run high and rough for days. How- 

 ever, there are lulls which do happen, and if these are taken 

 advantage of at the proper stages of the tide, good sport may 

 follow. Of course, at the actual moment, weather is often bad 

 to judge, but the time of all times (which is one which must 

 be partly foretold or taken thereon) for a good shot is a day's 

 lull in, say, a half-dozen days' storm, with the tide at a stage 

 which suits the locality best. At such times, especially during 

 a hard winter, fowl "pack up" and sleep, resting on land. 

 The poor birds are tired with being driven about in the storm. 

 So wary are real wildfowl that, unless these advantages (which 

 may seem rather mean to the uninitiated) are made the most of 

 by the fowler, the season's bag with the big gun, we can 

 assure him, will be a very small one. Chosen or favourite sites 

 for ducks resting at such times, are along the sides of shallow 

 creeks. These latter afford but scanty shelter for the birds, yet 

 thither they huddle together and sleep, even the sentry dropping 

 off. True, there is little shelter, yet it is evidently enough for 

 the hardy wildfowl of the mighty estuaries. On certain occa- 

 sions so fearless or heedless are they (all-gone-to-bed sort 

 of thing) of the punt's approach, that doubt is sure to arise in 

 the beginner's mind as to whether they are really wildfowl or 

 not. Sometimes, with careful and noiseless manoeuvring of the 

 punt, not a single bird will see its approach, and, as old 

 Tom C. used to remark of such shots, "They'd never wakken 

 alive." So much for the general remarks re punting weather. 

 The more detailed, or, as we might put it, the scientific 

 calculations of weather we must leave to the punter himself. 



