347 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Wildfowl-shooting Professional Fowlers Anchorages Fowl in 

 Position Retrieving Cripples On Firing at Fowl Judging Dis- 

 tance Timing a Shot Comparative Ranges of Guns. 



SHOOTING with a swivel-gun can never be so 

 popular or so lucrative a sport to the professional 

 fowler in Ireland as it is in England. In England, 

 though fowl are far less numerous, the fowlers 

 receive more gratuities from those who employ 

 them ; many Londoners being glad to pay liberally 

 for the sake of getting a few Redshanks, Curlews, 

 and other waders, with their assistance. The pro- 

 fessional shooters are men who, making a livelihood 

 as fishermen or boatmen during the summer, find 

 little to employ them in winter. Though they 

 seldom expect to earn any profit by the birds 

 they kill, they have other chances that would not 

 be thrown in their way in Ireland. The wild coasts 

 of that country, and the immense lakes and estu- 

 aries where fowl collect abundantly, are quite unsafe 

 for the small punts generally used in England. If 

 English professional fowlers came to Irish waters, 

 they would have to depend for their support on the 

 result of their shooting. There would be no visitors 

 to employ them, and, worst of all, very poor markets 

 for selling fowl. At the most available shooting 

 stations, such as Wexford, Limerick, Cork, Belfast, 



