HINTS ON PUNTING TO FOWL 263 



fired from a punt. The gunner in a punt shoots along and 

 over his birds, and if these latter are massed in a huge pack 

 on the water nearly every pellet tells. It is only reasonable to 

 think that punt-guns, like all other shot-throwing weapons, 

 kill most fowl when set low. Of course, as we have pointed 

 out, there is a limit to low setting, on accouut of the trajectory 

 of the missiles, or, in other words, a suitable height wherefrom 

 the correct elevation can be given the gun so as to counteract 

 gravitation acting on the shot charge. 



The benefit found in the killing of a large number of birds 

 by firing a gun set low, can be experimentally exemplified by 

 trying an ordinary shoulder, or what is called by puntsmen 

 a "hand," gun at birds (paper or cardboard ones) from the 

 shoulder, and then from a low-set stand. The gun in the 

 latter position will hit three times as many birds as when 

 fired from the shoulder, and perhaps more, if the birds 

 are placed on water. We would remind our readers that our 

 remarks are from sheer experience, and not from conjecture or 

 theory, as may perhaps be thought by those in doubt. Always 

 kneel to fire a large shoulder gun at sitting fowl. When dis- 

 charging a punt-gun at sitting birds, always prefer to be a little 

 over (and, if the distance is great, a lot over), rather than 

 under or dead on the mark. Ducks jump when they see the 

 smoke, if they are on the alert, and so quickly do they spring 

 high into the air that often they are well clear of the shot 

 before it reaches anywhere near them. Although good old 

 black powder shoots hard and strong (and it is all we have for 

 our large fowling-pieces), it can only be termed slow, when 

 compared with many of our modern nitros. The shot from a 

 punt-gun takes fully three times as long to reach a mark 

 a hundred yards away as the shot from a nitro 12-bore does to 

 reach an object fifty yards from the gun. 



