WILD-FOWLING AFLOAT BY NIGHT 213 



perhaps at least a thousand widgeon. For the nonce 

 we think we are unnoticed ; but, alas ! our hopes are 

 soon to be shattered, as the piercing cry of alarm, to 

 which this wary bird gives utterance on disappearing 

 into the darkness, is at once recognised by our quarry, 

 and with their departure en masse vanishes our last 

 chance for the night. Then, again, can we forget how 

 often the distant flash of the rival fowler's gun, or the 

 'tramp, tramp' of the shore gunner as he prowls 

 along the pebble-bound coast in the silence of the 

 night, has driven up fowl when almost within gun- 

 shot ? Such misfortunes, it is true, are hard to 

 endure, but they do not discourage the true fowler. 

 He knows that in punting, perhaps more than any 

 other sport, he is the victim of many unforeseen 

 circumstances which may upset all his calculations, 

 and therefore he accepts his fate, good or bad, as it 

 comes. 



Many fowlers think that the light of the stars 

 alone is not sufficient for shooting purposes. With 

 this view, however, Colonel Hawker evidently did 

 not agree, for he says that 'bright starlight is the 

 very best of all times for getting at birds as the 

 tide flows over the mud.' In the open waters of 

 Poole Harbour and the Solent, where he chiefly 

 punted, there would probably be no great difficulty 



