WEATHER ON SHOOTING. 207 



you use one, will be puzzled enough to find 

 the scent, and the result is that you walk 

 over quantities of birds. The discomfort and 

 inconveniences attendant upon sport when rain 

 is falling heavily to my mind are never com- 

 pensated for by the bags made. 



I do not think this topic of the effect 

 of the weather on birds has been adequately 

 treated by writers on sporting subjects. The 

 merest outline of the notion is sketched here, 

 and was suggested to me by the singular 

 consequences of a few days' frost upon the dis- 

 trict which I have opportunity of travelling 

 over. Storms over night have, I noted, the 

 effect of rendering snipe and woodcock wild 

 the next day, while they have a contrary 

 influence on duck. We all know how impor- 

 tant the discoveries of the barometer and ther- 

 mometer may be to the angler. He can in 

 some measure at least make a proximate 

 guess as to his luck by a glance at the state 

 of the weather. In wild-fowl shooting the 

 elements are perhaps not so important, but they 

 are very nearly so. A shooter may have his 

 good and his bad day as well as the fisherman 



