SEA-POWL SHOOTING. 139 



sustain pressure against its sides, whicli are not twenty inches high 

 from the surface of the water ; in this the punter by night drops 

 down with the tide, or uses his paddles after the fowl ; he knows 

 their haunts, and takes every advantage of Avind, tide, moon, &c. 

 His gun, which carries as much as a little cannon, is laid with the 

 muzzle over the stem of the punt in a liitch, which regulates the 

 line of aim. At the bottom of the punt he lies upon his belly, and 

 gets as near the route of the fowls that are upon the water as pos- 

 sible ; when within range of liis gun, he rattles with his feet against 

 the bottom of his punt, and when the fowls begin to spring at this 

 unexpected sound, at that moment he puUs the trigger, and cuts a 

 lane through their ranks. He instantly follows the direction of his 

 shot, and gathers up those that are killed or just expiring, for very 

 seldom he makes it answer to row after fowl that are only wounded. 

 He then charges his gun, and drifts further down the river, in 

 hopes of a second, third, and successive shots. By this mode a 

 man has brought home from fourscore to a hundred of wild fowls 

 of various kinds in one night's excursion ; and this _wiU not seem 

 an exaggerated account when the multitudes which, in hard, frosty 

 weather, with the wind at east or north-east, haunt the Blackwater 

 river are known. * * * The gun proper for this shooting, when 

 followed as an amusement, has no occasion to be more than three 

 feet four inches in the barrel. The regular shooter for profit uses one 

 of three feet eight, which would not weigh less than twelve pounds 

 (upon this scale the whole gun will be about eighteen pounds 

 weight); this quantity of iron, of the above length, will be as 

 capable, or more so, of throwing shot as sharp and distinct as a 

 barrel two feet longer. Should this heavy mass be objected to as 

 cumbersome to carry, let it be remembered that these guns are not 

 meant to lie upon the arm, or to be carried about in the fields; the 

 shooter is either seated in a boat or upon a marsh ; in either situa- 

 tion the gun does not fatigue him, since he has nothing to do but 

 elevate it as the wiid-fo\vl fly over liis head, and after firing and 

 charging, let it again lie by mm until fresh objects require its use. 

 Without this ponderous substance, no man can stand the recoil of a 

 gun that will carry a sufiicient charge for doing execution at great 

 lengths, and to kill manv birds at a shot. A common fowling-piece 

 may do its business well, so far as its capacity extends, but it wiU 

 carry very few pellets of either single or double Bristol shot ; the 

 latter is generally used by the punters for day, and the former for 

 night-shooting ; the largest BB patent shot is too light for either, 

 but even with that a gun with a common-sized bore would not carry 

 enough to do any great execution, if a rout of fowls were ever so 

 numerous." 



On and in the vicinity of thel'ern Islands, near to Berwick-upon- 

 Tweed, there are an immense quantity of wild-fowl congregated, 

 and here they breed in surprising numbers. It is impossible, in 

 walking on the ground, to step upon a single square foot of space 

 without crushing eggs beneath your feet. In the winter season, 



