Wttofotol in 



ON the French coast, although they are all great 

 shooters, and especially on a Sunday ! I could never 

 meet with a very small boat of any kind. 



I remember going to a lake, called Gattemare, about 

 a league from Barfleur, which contained more wild- 

 fowl (chiefly (htnbirds) than ever I had before seen 

 together. They floated with the greatest composure, 

 while the canaille were firing at coots, &c. from the 

 banks ; and the lake being above a mile long, and 

 nearly half a mile broad, these birds, aware of their 

 safety (like the ranks of puffins on a cliff), remain 

 indifferent to the noise of guns. Finding nothing 

 could be done with them, I, and some friends, tempted 

 the commissary of marine, by a promise of bringing 

 birds enough to keep his family for a week, and 

 giving him something from Angleterre, to exert 

 himself most zealously in getting a boat overland. 

 This having been accomplished, we started before 

 daylight ; but, instead of finding * petit canot, as he 

 and his gens tfarmes had described it, we were 

 ushered into a huge man of war's boat, that, in a few 

 minutes, put the whole pond in motion with the 



