WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 45 



haunts before it is daylight, others following later. 

 After a boisterous night they rest on the flats, or float 

 over them longer than usual. They are loth to face 

 the storm, and afford a good chance to the early 

 flighter as they fly to sea ; and doubly so, if forced 

 to battle against the wind. 



It is curious how wildfowl frequent and desert 

 certain bays, though their food may be abundant, 

 and persecution slight. Many old fowlers now 

 living declare that they recollect when Wigeon 

 were rarely 'met with on the south-west coast of 

 Ireland between Loop Head and Cape Clear ; and 

 that Geese were then more plentiful by far than 

 now. Thompson tells us that Buckle (Colonel 

 Hawker's man) killed twenty-five Brent at a shot 

 in Dingle Bay, a place which they are now never 

 known to favour, though plentiful a few miles distant 

 at Tralee. As to Belfast Bay, and the shooting there 

 years ago, I may further allude to it to give some idea 

 of what it is now in regard to its wildfowl. Mr. L. 

 Patterson writes to me : " One of our most success- 

 ful local shooters, with punt and gun, procured four 

 hundred and fifty fowl that is, Duck, Wigeon, Teal, 

 and Geese in 1 880-81, the most favourable winter 

 known for many years. So near a large town, 

 and between well-inhabited shores on either side, 

 clothed with villages and small towns, Belfast 

 Lough would still be what it once was, were it not 

 for the increased shipping a splendid place for 

 wildfowl ; its natural advantages of formation being 

 such as to entice these birds in large numbers 

 even now, though so near a town of a quarter of 

 a million of people, and a great highway for 



