CARE OF HEALTH BY WILDFOWLER S. 427 



we venture to say a few words upon the care of health 

 by sportsmen. Decidedly no one should attempt to 

 incur the exposure which the sport of duck shooting 

 entails during severe weather, unless he is blessed with 

 robust health. The wildfowler is of necessity often 

 exposed to the rigour of the elements, and to the 

 influence of cold and wet, to a degree unexampled in 

 other kinds of sport. Wildfowling in the first place is 

 almost altogether a winter occupation, and the colder 

 and more boisterous the weather, in many cases, the 

 more favourable are the prospects of sport. A peculiarly 

 hard winter in the British Islands therefore, always 

 proves a good season for wildfowl shooting of every 

 sort. The duck shooter often has to wade for hours 

 through swamps when the water is icy cold ; and has 

 to wait behind blinds for the arrival of birds in the 

 severest weather. If he is a punt gunner he has to be 

 out, in all weathers, for the greater part of the night. The 

 constant wet and cold to which he is exposed, therefore, 

 cannot but prove a severe trial to the strongest constitution. 

 How fatal the effects of cold really are upon the human 

 system, only those who have made these things a study 

 can adequately conceive ; it may be broadly stated that 

 chills of one sort or another are the primary cause of most 

 cases of fatal illness. " As a predisposing and exciting 

 cause of disease (says Dr. Quain) cold proves in this 

 country, year by year, more fatal in its effects than any 

 other single condition or influence. Any considerable 

 fall in the thermometer below the average standard, 

 during the colder months, is followed by a correspond- 

 ing rise in the death-rate, and an increase in still greater 

 proportion, in the extent of sickness and suffering." * 



* See Quain's Medical Dictionary, Vol. i, p. 272. 



