230 SHOOTING THE DUCK AND THE GOOSE 



eighty yards. In the light of these remarks, therefore, 

 it would seem that close quarters and medium-sized 

 shot constitute the recipe for making a heavy bag of 

 fowl. Many years ago, Captain Frank Dowler also 

 obtained some exceptionally fine sport on the German 

 coast, and with a gun firing only fourteen ounces of 

 shots he succeeded in bagging 264 head of widgeon, 

 ducks, teal, and bernacle geese in one day. He says 

 that it was impossible to get properly up to the 

 bernacle geese, as the punt was too low in the water 

 with the weight of fowl aboard. His duck-shooting 

 average that year was 31 '5 birds per shot. 



Following the line of the coast round we now 

 come to South Holland. The characteristics of the 

 Dutch estuaries in South Holland are huge sand- 

 banks with soft ooze interspersed among them, and 

 great tidal marshes of alluvial deposit, covered by 

 spring tides, but having enough grass on them in the 

 vicinity of the sea walls to run a few sheep occasion- 

 ally. Through these sandbanks a few channels per- 

 meate, in which a punt can be worked for an hour or 

 two at high tide. The food on the Dutch coast is 

 not so abundant as in some of our English resorts, 

 but a certain amount of Zostera marina grows on the 

 mudflats, and no doubt the birds take advantage of 

 it. They seem to pick up a good deal of sustenance 



