footing S2Utltrfotol tn ^France. 



ON the French coast, although they are all great 

 shooters, and especially on a Sunday ! I could never 

 meet with a very small boat of any kind. 



I remember going to a lake, called Gattemare, about 

 a league from Barfleur, which contained more wildfowl 

 (chiefly dunbirds) than ever I had before seen together. 

 They floated with the greatest composure, while the 

 canaille were firing at coots, &c. from the banks ; and 

 the lake being above a mile long, and nearly half a mile 

 broad, these birds, aware of their safety (like the ranks 

 of puffins on a cliff), remained indifferent to the noise of 

 guns. Finding nothing could be done with them, I, 

 and some friends, tempted the commissary of marine, 

 by a promise of bringing birds enough to keep his 

 family for a week, and giving him something from 

 Angleterre, to exert himself most zealously in getting 

 a boat overland. This having been accomplished, we 

 started before daylight ; but instead of finding a petit 

 canot, as he and his gens d'armes had described it, we 

 were ushered into a huge man of war's boat, that, in a 

 few minutes, put the whole pond in motion with the 

 rising of birds, and very soon after was nearly sending 

 us to the bottom of it, by the rapidity with which it 

 leaked. In spite of all, however, our sport, with common 



