HINTS ON PUNTING TO FOWL 259 



following boat should be employed until such times as a 

 thorough knowledge of your fowling quarters has been gained. 

 Failing this, very careful voyages must be taken, a chart of the 

 locality carried, and close observations taken of the surround- 

 ings, "sets" of the tide, landmarks (if any can be seen), or 

 any guide-sticks which may be noted. Careless and reckless 

 ventures invariably prove disastrous. And what otherwise can 

 be expected ? To be stranded on soft ooze about six miles 

 from the mainland, without knowledge of your exact where- 

 abouts, yet well knowing that before nightfall the increasing 

 wind will bring in the tide so rough that your craft will be 

 three parts swamped before five minutes afloat, is never a 

 delightful experience, to say the least of it. Most folks know 

 nothing of being out in a mighty estuary, where nothing meets 

 the eye except, apparently, endless wastes of mud, sand, and 

 water. Perhaps, if the day is very clear, a high church steeple, 

 a chimney, or a windmill on the mainland may just cap the 

 horizon. When we remember that over many of our flats the 

 tide recedes four to six miles with a fall of only eight to twelve 

 feet, the mainland near these desolate flats is generally low- 

 lying. After the punter has proceeded with the ebb of the 

 tide to a fall of about eight feet, he, of course, loses sight of all 

 low-lying mainland. The beginner, not realising this, may 

 wonder why he so soon loses sight of land, when the surround- 

 ing flats seem to him as level as their name implies. The de- 

 ceiving nature of the situation lies in the fact that the fall of 

 the flats is so slight, proportionate with distance, that, to all 

 appearance, the ground looks perfectly flat, which is, of course, 

 generally speaking, accurate, but wholly incorrect from a 

 practical point of view. 



We will describe a shot with a punt-gun on the flow of the 

 tide. The birds are mallards, and a couple of hundred strong 

 in number. They are scattered over the mud-flats and along 

 the water's edge. The punt steals quickly up the main 



