174 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



fowlers think they have a prescriptive right to the 

 foreshore and the water beyond. Bullets have 

 been fired from fowling - guns most unpleasantly 

 near to the punt of one gentleman who is well 

 known for his fowling exploits on the tide and tidal 

 waters. Not only that, but they have been fired 

 also at the fowl he has been setting to, to put them 

 up before he could draw within range. At last 

 this was carried on to such an extent that he took 

 a repeating-rifle in the punt with him. As a rule 

 there is not much to hide behind, on a bleak fore- 

 shore, unless you dig a hole, and that is not done 

 in a moment ; so his hint was taken, and he was 

 troubled no more. The portrait of this gentleman 

 is before me as I write. In one of his own con- 

 tributions to a well-known work on sporting matters, 

 he states that foremost and unrivalled stands the 

 work of that father of wild-fowling, Colonel Peter 

 Hawker, the fifth edition of which was published 

 in 1826, failing to mention, from a modesty pecu- 

 liarly his own, a grand volume by himself on wild- 

 fowling. This he most generously presented me 

 with in 1884. I have read it through many times 

 from end to end, and always with increasing satis- 



