238 SHOOTING THE DUCK AND THE GOOSE 



M. le Chevalier Lorenzo Dastis, a wild-fowler of note 

 living at St. Valery-sur-Somme, tells me that this system 

 of hut-shooting is most productive at night, and on 

 certain occasions from fifty to sixty duck, teal, and 

 pintail have been bagged between sunset and sunrise. 

 The best sport, however, which he obtained was in 

 1879 at the big lakes of Pologne. 



Owing to the strength of the current in the river 

 Somme, which at spring-tides often exceeds six knots, 

 fowling from a punt in the bay of the Somme is 

 fraught with considerable risk. The usual practice, 

 therefore, is to shoot the fowl at low water when they 

 fly off the sandbanks to the main channel. Some 

 sportsmen also dig holes in the sandflats and having 

 placed straw therein conceal themselves behind from 

 fifteen to twenty stuffed birds, which they have pre- 

 viously set up in some convenient pool of water 

 in front of them so as to attract the wild ones. In 

 his experience, although he has shot in many places, 

 M. Dastis says that, excepting perhaps at the mouth of 

 the Orne, near Ouistreham, he has never seen more 

 fowl, both as regards quantity and species, than there 

 are in the bay of the Somme during the winter, and 

 their numbers are, moreover, considerably augmented 

 when the spring migration begins. 



Although, generally speaking, the northern coast 



