EXPENSES. 441 



useful. For getting up to cripples in a single- 

 handed punt the sculls will be used, and you can 

 kneel with your face to the stem, and push oar up 

 to the wounded. Did you pull you could not keep 

 an eye on them from the moment you fired, as is of 

 course most necessary when retrieving after a shot. 

 To cover expenses of two men, attendant boat, 

 powder and shot, &c., poor fowlers would have to 

 put aside at least 100 fowl per month, valued at a 

 shilling apiece, ere they could look to gain. Say 

 they made i IDS. a week profit (nothing much 

 less would repay them, when travelling and other 

 expenses not named are considered), they would 

 have to kill at the rate of 220 a month, or about 

 T,OOO in the season. Against the profits would be 

 the fowl given away (which they would have to do 

 more or less, or their shooting would be little), small 

 birds, for which a low price would be given by the 

 dealers, and their carriage to the nearest town, per- 

 haps thirty miles distant ; for good bags are not 

 made near the haunts of men. Besides this, a shil- 

 ling apiece is a high price for Wigeon in Ireland ; 

 eightpence is nearer the mark, and when plentiful 

 sixpence. Duck are always scarce, as they keep, 

 except in severe frost, which does not often occur 

 in Ireland on the inland lakes and bogs. Geese, 

 though valuable, are only in few harbours to be 

 had in numbers (and in these they are well perse- 

 cuted), except, like Duck, in severe frost. They 

 then, though abundant and tame, soon get thin, and 

 a small value is set upon them by the buyers. No 

 one, I may add, who values his life more than a 

 Duck's, need attempt coast-fowling in Ireland in 



