INTRODUCTION. XXI 



Wild-fowl have always been more abundant on the eastern coast, 

 between the mouth of the Thames and the coast of Yorkshire, than 

 elsewhere in England : a circumstance to be accounted for by the 

 commanding- position which that part of the coast occupies with the 

 corresponding' Netherlands. The numbers of wild-fowl and the 

 amount of sport on the southern coast, can never have been at all in 

 proportion to those parts of the coast which skirt the Norfolk broads, 

 Essex marshes, and the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire : 

 indeed, the extent of sport on the south coast has always been mo- 

 derate, except in sharp winters. 



The subject of the " Shooting Yacht," with experiences of shooting 

 under sail, have never been collectively published. The sport 

 was little understood, and seldom resorted to, in the days of Colonel 

 Haw T ker. Punting was then, also, comparatively speaking, in its 

 infancy, when contrasted with the perfection to which the art has 

 since attained ; for when the birds became scarce, the ingenuity of the 

 punter was taxed to the utmost ; and a greater perfection in skill has 

 thus been acquired. 



The whole of the subjects entered upon (except as regards ancient 

 and foreign methods of capturing wild-fowl) are explained from per- 

 sonal practice ; and wherever I have borrowed assistance from others, 

 I have frankly acknowledged it. 



It may be proper here to allude to a vulgar error which exists in 

 some minds, that there is a fishy flavour about all wild-fowl, which 

 renders them disagreeable as an article of food. Such, I need 

 scarcely say, is altogether erroneous ; the only birds which possess 

 that disagreeable odour in their flesh, being those which subsist on 

 fish : and for the purpose of catching and holding such, Nature has 

 gifted them with superior powers, and a beak totally different to that 

 of other water-fowl. The fishy-flavoured fowl have serrated beaks, 

 the interior mandibles of which, with their shark-like teeth, are ex- 

 quisitely formed for holding, with firm grasp, the most slippery of the 

 finny tribe. These are, for the most part, of the species diver and 

 merganser ; and their flesh is not palatable. Those which are so 



