382 FRENCH HUT-SHOOTING. 



and little inconvenience, may better suit the ge- 

 nerality of my readers, than the more scientific plans 

 of wildfowl shooting. The lakes of Peronne are 

 better calculated for a lover of comfort to shoot at 

 his ease than any place I have seen. The water, 

 being a part of the Somme, is not quite stagnant ; 

 and is, in every part, about four or five feet deep, 

 surrounded, and intersected, by innumerable islands 

 and walls of rushes. The waters here are rented by 

 different " huttiers" (hut-shooters), who get the chief 

 of their livelihood by supplying the markets of Paris, 

 and other towns, with wildfowl, which they shoot, 

 instead of taking them by decoys, as in our country. 

 Though the French, in some places, are very expert 

 at catching birds (particularly on that vast tract of 

 wild sand between Crotoi and St. Valery, where I 

 have seen the whole mouth of the Somme spread 

 with nets and surrounded by lines of horse hair 

 nooses), yet shooting from the hut (la hutte) is the 

 favourite, and most general, method of getting wild- 

 fowl in France. The common way of making a hut 

 is to dig a hole in the ground by the side of some 

 pool or pond ; and then roof it over with turf, so that 

 not an opening remains, but one hole, into which you 

 crawl ; out of which you fire ; and in front of which 

 are fastened, to three separate pegs in the water, two 

 tame ducks, and a drake. The drake must be in the 

 centre, and the ducks one on each side of him, at 

 about five yards interval ; and the birds being thus 



