232 SHOOTING THE DUCK AND THE GOOSE 



At Veere, before the era of protection, gunners were 

 in the habit of incessantly poking their small punts 

 through the marshes, and at low tide crawling about in 

 sea boots, armed with shoulder-guns. This, of course, 

 broke up the natural haunt of the fowl, and drove them 

 to the open sea, so that in mild weather scarcely any 

 were visible throughout the estuary. After the protection, 

 which began in 1894-95, a very different state of things 

 soon became manifest. Birds collected all through the 

 autumn in increasing numbers, and were visible by 

 day and every day, both on the marshes and on the 

 edges of such of the sandflats as were not too near the 

 shipping traffic of the navigable channel. Not only did 

 the number of the fowl increase but the number of species 

 also. 



Having got your fowl together in numbers, punt- 

 shooters would naturally ask how can they be brought to 

 bag, and have you reduced punt-shooting to the level of 

 ordinary game shooting, that is, to a certainty ? This, 

 however, is a practical impossibility. There may be, 

 and in fact often are, some two thousand duck and mal- 

 lard on the Veere Gat marshes all the winter, but far 

 out of reach, scattered about over five or six square 

 miles of saltings. In no place would the discharge of a 

 punt-gun realise more than half a dozen birds. Many 

 more could be killed with a shoulder-gun by knocking 

 them down as they jump up, often close to the punt, 

 while working through the devious creeks in the 

 marshes. But this kind of thing would inevitably break 

 the haunt of your fowl if carried out on any scale. Your 

 mallards must, perforce, be left alone, until the stern 

 hand of winter causes a change in their habits. 



One does fare a little better with the widgeon. They 



