278 THE WILD-FOWLER. 



but return in the morning in larger flights. They fly very low as 

 they proceed over water and mud, but rise higher in the air on 

 reaching the land. 



In windy weather they keep more together, and go in larger flights; 

 but very swiftly, if their course be down wind. The sportsman must 

 be doubly quick in taking his shots, or the birds will have passed by 

 him before he can bring the gun to his shoulder. If, on the other hand, 

 the course of the birds be against a strong wind, their flight will be 

 so steady that the sportsman will have abundant time to make a 

 fair shot. 



When the moon rises before twilight, the flight-shooter's sport is 

 often considerably prolonged, as many of the fowl frequently reserve 

 their flight an hour or two later on such occasions, more especially 

 ducks which have been constantly shot at on their flight : these birds 

 sometimes defer their flight to the feeding marshes until long after 

 the customary hour, during moonlight. 



Wild-fowl generally fly much lower in the morning flight than in 

 the evening, sometimes only just topping the hedges, and they 

 appear less wary of danger ; probably this may be accounted for by 

 their crops being full and their appetites appeased. 



As a general rule, the more the wild-fowl fly about during the day, 

 the less they do so at night. Open weather is far more favourable to 

 flight-shooting than sharp frosts ; indeed, the less frost there is the 

 better for this sport. 



In some places flight-shooting is practised from boxes or tubs sunk 

 into the ground on open plains, often in the very heart of the best 

 feeding-grounds. From these positions the flight-shooter fires at the 

 birds both on the wing and as soon as they alight; whichever 

 appears to present the better chance. So indefatigably do some men 

 pursue this particular branch of sport that they remain throughout 

 the whole night in these sunk boxes.* 



Generally speaking, wherever there happens to be a favoured 

 situation for flight-shooting, and a severe winter, with plenty of 

 birds, there is such an assemblage of " village roughs" every evening, 

 with guns of very doubtful safety, ancient muskets, rusty barrels picked 



* Captain Lacy, in speaking of sunk boxes being used on the coast of Dur- 

 ham as places of concealment, says : " The Greatham flight- shooters are, for 

 the most part, what the greyhound men call rare good stickers ; for they will sit in 

 those boxes till the icicles hang down from the hairs of their head, so long as there 

 remains but the hope even of a good shot to be made !" The Modern Shooter ; by 

 Captain Laoy. 1842. 



