PUNT-SHOOTING NO SLAUGHTER. 345 



succeeding a pleasure enhanced by difficulties, by 

 alternate good and bad fortune ; for easy won is 

 little valued. 



Were punt-shooting a mere matter of setting 

 forth to kill fowl without any difficulty, then indeed 

 would it be slaughter. A friend of mine, who is an 

 indefatigable fowler, with great trouble and expense 

 took his punt and gun to Egypt, where he had heard 

 thrilling accounts of the abundance of wildfowl. 

 At his first shot he killed sixty Duck and Teal, but 

 finding the birds very tame, and no means of dis- 

 posing of them, his interest at once fled, and he 

 departed, after some half-dozen shots, disgusted 

 to find all his pleasure renewed on reaching home, 

 where, as when he left, the birds required all his 

 energies to outwit and secure them ! 



Some affirm that shooting with a swivel-gun is 

 slaughter, from their ignorance of its hardships and 

 science, and from its apparent simplicity. These 

 critics will add, that a tramp on shore and shots at 

 single birds are to be preferred. The latter is pretty 

 sport surely, and easy work! It is hard to miss a 

 mallard rising from under foot. Such shooting is 

 rarely to be found, but, when obtained, is, with occa- 

 sional Snipe and Cock, a seasonable change from 

 fowling proper, as fowling is to it. Yet I never 

 knew one of these talkers pass a chance at five or 

 six Duck or Teal together, without scheming and 

 wriggling half a mile, if necessary, to get a shot 

 into their midst. Their intentions are identical 

 with those of the punter, differing only in that they 

 cannot wield a swivel-gun from the shoulder, or 

 get so near to large companies of fowl. 



