WILDFOWLING WITH THE STANCHION-GUN. 151 



experience. After jotting down ideas for years and filling 

 page after page of note-books on this subject, I now strike 

 the pen through the whole, and will confine myself to a few 

 remarks on the initial difficulties which an aspiring punt- 

 gunner may expect to encounter. 



When " setting up " to fowl, the sportsman, lying flat on 

 his chest on the bottom boards of his punt and with his eye 

 only raised a few inches above sea-level, has the whole watery 

 horizon for several miles compressed into a (vertical) space of, 

 say, 1ft. Between his eye and the birds are interposed, say, 

 Sin. vertically, equalling perhaps 200 yards horizontally, of 

 rippling grey waves, amidst which the thin grey and inter- 

 rupted line of fowl appears and disappears twenty times in a 

 minute. The difficulty of correctly judging distance under 

 these conditions, and from so prostrate a point of view, is 

 obvious. There is not a single mark or guide to assist the 

 eye. The 200 yards may appear only 60, or 60 be mistaken 

 for 200, under varying atmospheric conditions ; yet correct 

 judgment of distance is one of the first and most essential 

 elements towards securing a really successful shot. 



Well, we will suppose our friend has managed to dis- 

 criminate the distance between his eye and those grey dots 

 bobbing about among the rippling grey waves ; and also that 

 he has so far succeeded as to approach to some 60 or 70 

 yards' range. At this distance a difference of but 2in. in the 

 sighting or elevation of a 6ft. barrel makes a difference of 

 nearly 6ft. in the line of the shot. But, on running his eye 

 along the gun to take aim, he will probably find that there is 

 at least that amount of perpetual motion on the muzzle, 

 owing to the " life " of his craft in the sea. Thus the gun 

 lifts one moment far over the heads of the fowl, the next dips 

 as far below them. Then, while striving to make sure of his 

 level, he perhaps finds the thick clump at which he was aim- 

 ing has melted away, and the boat's head must be brought 

 round to bear on another clump a point or two away. While 

 executing this manoeuvre, the nearer stragglers begin to raise 

 their heads to crane up their necks. They are going to fly. 

 The gunner knows it is now a matter of a second or two ; 

 perhaps gets flurried ; and the upshot of the affair is often 



