SHOOTING ON THE COAST BY DAYLIGHT. 275 



These men, whose " honest " calling 1 the colonel defends, are not 

 always so particular as to their honesty as may be supposed. I 

 have seen them lie in ambush an hour and upwards at the foot 

 of a game-preserve ; when hares, rabbits, or pheasants, which 

 might chance to creep out upon the shore, were quickly despatched 

 with a charge from the punt-gun ; sometimes four or five at a shot. 

 A few of the farmers' turnips also occasionally form part of the result 

 of their punting excursions, for they never approve of returning home 

 with an empty game bag. 



Again, the colonel's jealousy knows no bounds. Speaking of a 

 season when the winter was very severe, and the birds abundant, he 

 remarks " Whenever there was a pretty breeze or a fine day there 

 was scarcely an acre of sea or land that was not infested by boat- 

 failing bullet-poppers and blue-jacket shore-snobs." 



The laughable invectives of the colonel, too truly bespeak his un- 

 generous feelings towards those whom many other sportsmen would 

 have regarded in a more considerate light, or whose doings they pro- 

 bably would have thought too insignificant for notice. 



