442 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



a single punt or without a following boat, lest he be 

 in sheltered creeks and harbours, in which, though 

 fair shooting may at times be had, fowlers abound 

 and sport is inferior. On the wide, unsheltered 

 estuaries, where fowl are plentiful, they cannot 

 be overreached but at a considerable outlay 

 of local experience and money. Though the 

 gentleman fowler, purse permitting, may over- 

 come each separate difficulty if so inclined, for 

 the sake of sport, the poor shooter, if he did so, 

 would be left little, perhaps no profit. With the very 

 best and most costly of arrangements, I consider 

 six to seven hundred fowl with a double punt and 

 an attendant boat a first-rate season.* It is only in 

 the most exceptionally favourable winters,! perchance 



* With a single-handed punt and small gun to match, say one 

 shooting from twelve to sixteen ounces, without a following boat, and 

 in creeks and harbours that can be safely so shot, from three to four 

 hundred fowl would be a good season. I do not take Curlew into 

 consideration, when I talk of fowl or small waders ; they are held 

 in little esteem in Ireland and valued at a trifle. As to Plover, though 

 they visit a few estuaries in large stands, it is only for a short time in 

 the beginning of the season. They rather frequent, in winter, large 

 green reclaimed fields and low lands, where they cannot be reached 

 by the duck-shooter, though the netters sweep them up in hundreds, 

 and it is only at rare intervals that heavy shots are obtained at them. 



f" We have, however, had no lack of suitable seasons in Ireland for 

 Wildfowl-shooting of late years. A good many weeks of the past 

 three winters have consisted of real downright hard weather for a 

 month or more at a stretch regular blood-freezing, pipe-bursting, 

 pump-choking frosts ; "Adam's ale" selling at so much a bucket in 

 the streets ; a clear steel-blue sky week after week ; the sea silent and 

 still ; twenty degrees of cold at nights. Even those demons of wari- 

 ness, the gun-shy, punt-avoiding Brent, let us poor fowlers for once in 

 a way rake them fore and aft in fine style. 



Extract from my shooting journal : "Jan. 24th, 1881, 9 o'clock. 

 Just come on board for breakfast. Been out all night and since 3 

 yesterday afternoon. Grand weather and sport ; fowl on all sides in 



