INTRODUCTION. 



A HEAVY gale is blowing from the east. Wearied of the 

 shrieking wind as it whistles through the rain-tautened 

 cordage, I descend cabinwards, debating whether the 

 occasion is not a fitting one to begin to put in order my 

 collection of notes for an oft-proposed and as oft-deferred 

 book on wildfowl-shooting in Ireland. It would perchance 

 beguile the time, help to pass the long, dark evening, and 

 be at least a change from wondering whether the anchor 

 drags, whether the wind is moderating, and other anxious 

 surmises affecting a fowling-cutter on the bleak coast of 

 a wide estuary, with bad holding-ground and a lee-shore. 

 Despite the utmost care, this is sometimes the fate of 

 a fowler. Had it not been for that last tempting gaggle 

 of Brent Geese, we should have seen our way safely into 

 shelter and be relieved of all anxiety, instead of find- 

 ing ourselves in the above predicament, with a falling 

 barometer, on a winter's afternoon. But all ends well. 

 The morning breaks bright and calm, and after a good 

 day's sport scribbling is again resorted to. 



Though a wildfowl shooter's existence is often tinged 

 with melancholy, by reason of the broad expanse of waste 

 and shipless water whereon his favourite sport is pursued, 

 still, should game-shooting become monotonous, and impair 

 the energy with which it was wont to be followed, I would 



. . 

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