390 WILDFOWL SHOOTING 



the way, you take the precaution to keep a place 

 open for them, which plan answers most admirably, 

 to get the very best shots that can be made. But 

 should the weather be open, the greater part of the 

 wildfowl remain in the decoys during the day-time, 

 and this marshy country is too much extended to 

 select any particular spot for their evening flights : 

 consequently, save having a tolerable quantity of 

 bitterns, occasionally most excellent snipe shooting, 

 and in summer the flapper shooting, here is not 

 much to be done till about the last fortnight in 

 March, when the birds are distributed preparative to 

 their breeding. Then it is that old ducks and teal 

 may be put up arid killed right and left with a double 

 gun ; and then it is that we have the greatest chance 

 of catching the ague ! 



The fens from Holme to Ramsay were, at one time, 

 the best I had seen : they lay to the right of the 

 north road, when you are going down, within a stage 

 of Huntingdon, and scarcely an hour's walk from 

 Stilton. But afterwards, in 1816, 1 found those near 

 Winterton, in Norfolk (the private property of I. B, 

 Huntingdon *, and R. Rising, Esqrs.) far superior ; 

 and the variety of wild birds here was such, that, in 

 the breeding season, you might kill from twenty to 

 thirty different sorts in a day. Some, by-the-by, I 

 had never seen before, and, if I mistake not, I was 

 favoured with a sight of two or three, that were not 



* Lately occupied, if not purchased, by Joseph lluinc. Esqr. 

 M. P. 



