42 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



you would alarm all the others. They would, if 

 left quiet, greedily attack the slob when it next 

 showed, and perhaps afford an admirable chance at 

 break of day the best time of all others for a 

 heavy bag. Twilight is also an excellent time for 

 a shot. The birds can be seen long after the usual 

 hour if you are pointing towards the sunset, or the 

 glow left in the sky. As in moonlight, the fowler 

 himself is obscured in shade. A heavy shot at 

 such times, with the fading light, does not, however, 

 make retrieving the cripples an easy matter, as is 

 the case with the coming day. You can only see 

 your " pensioners " in the broad road of reflected 

 light : if they swim astern or to either side, they 

 will be lost sight of in the dark shadow. 



There are many creeks and flats along the coast 

 where the Wigeon feed every night in dense 

 packs.* At first glimmer of dawn they fly to sea, 

 there to rest and sleep through the day. About 

 dusk they get uneasy and restless, and again make 

 for their feeding grounds, at first in small trips, then 



* Thompson writes that soon after the introduction of a punt gun 

 to Lough Larne, co. Antrim, sixty-six and again seventy-six Wigeon 

 were obtained at one discharge, and that eighteen more were picked 

 up by another fowler after the last shot, making ninety-four in all. 

 He adds that the greatest number of wildfowl killed in Belfast Bay 

 was about the year 1830, when one man living in a smack among the 

 fowl obtained three hundred and thirty-six Geese, Duck, Wigeon, 

 and Teal in a week. Since then the most shot by one fowler in a 

 week might be from two hundred to two hundred and fifty wildfowl, 

 and often less than fifty. This shows us how abundant the fowl 

 must have been at that time, when small guns, carrying perhaps a 

 pound of shot, were chiefly used. With the heavy weapons now 

 common in Ireland (I know at least fifteen that shoot twice as 

 much as a pound, and even more), what havoc would have been 

 caused ! 



