WILD-GOOSE SHOOTING 179 



will submit to be driven past the fowler's hidden 

 battery by an assistant, if conditions of wind and tide 

 are favourable, and the drive is so arranged that they 

 must follow a course which they are accustomed to 

 take when passing to and fro between their feeding- 

 grounds. The area of mudflats, however, is often so 

 extensive that it is impossible to calculate with any 

 certainty what direction the geese will take when put 

 up. By way of variety, it is a good plan to try to 

 sail down on the geese, and in a fast punt this is un- 

 doubtedly a very pretty and exciting form of sport 

 with a minimum of exertion for the fowler. The 

 rough and tumble of a choppy sea makes aiming the 

 gun a difficult matter, and the birds are often high up 

 in the air before the muzzle can be brought to bear 

 on them. 



Like other wild-fowl, brent are very susceptible to 

 coming changes in the weather, and both before and 

 after a gale they will sometimes sit well to a punt. I 

 have a vivid recollection of a certain dark, dismal 

 day in the winter of 1893, when I had magnificent 

 sport with the geese. The weather that day went 

 from bad to worse, and the sea in the main channels 

 at length became so heavy that our retreat home- 

 wards seemed seriously threatened. The brent were 

 strangely confiding, and in a few hours I fired four 



