BOAT SHOOTING, UNDER SAIL. 



one cruise out of harbour before we proceed for the 

 shooting system to France. 



To venture after fowl at sea you must have a large 

 boat, with good bearings, that will carry plenty of can- 

 vas. Rowing after them scarcely ever answers; but 

 when it blows fresh, a fast sailing boat may often run 

 in upon geese, and sometimes other birds, before they 

 can take wing ; and after a coast has been for some time 

 harassed by the gunning-punts, I have seen more birds 

 killed under sail from a common boat, than by any 

 other manner of day shooting. But to do the business 

 tvell, a stanchion-gun must be fixed in the boat, and 

 this, by all means, contrived so as to go back with the 

 recoil, or you run the risk of staving your boat, and, 

 therefore, of being really in danger. Recollect, when 

 you get on the outside of the harbour, an accident is no 

 joke ; and you have, as Dr. Johnson observes, but one 

 plank between you and eternity. 



A boat for this work should have plenty of bearings, 

 and have as little keel as she can well go to windward 

 with, in order to get, at times, within shot of the mud 

 and sands, and also to run through a harbour at spring- 

 tides, without getting aground. You should, therefore, 

 for this sport, always make choice of a day when the 

 wind is off the land, and a time when the tide is flowing i 

 as you have then no danger of filling your boat with 

 the hollow sea of a lee shore, or running her so fast 

 aground as not to be able to get her off immediately. 

 In following wildfowl under sail, command, as much as 

 you can, a windward birth, in order to bear down on 

 them at pleasure ; and if they rise out of shot against 

 wind, as they usually do, luff up directly, and try to 



