WILDFOWLING WITH THE STANCHION- GUN. 153 



great quantities, and no small variety, of wildfowl can gener- 

 ally be seen. I write seen advisedly, for to few is it given to 

 handle them comprehensively ; and, as a matter of mere sport, 

 the results of casual coast-shooting are seldom considered 

 commensurate with its difficulties and hardships as a tem- 

 porary abandonment of luxury is called. Even to a fully 

 equipped puntsman there is seldom a certainty of success. 

 When one starts for a day's shooting at home, or sets out for 

 a week's campaign on the moors, the probable bag can usually 

 be foretold with tolerable accuracy. There may be a few brace 

 more, or a few brace less ; but on the salt water no such 

 forecast is possible. So restless and shifty are wildfowl 

 here to-day, gone to-morrow so bleak, exposed, and shelter- 

 less their chosen haunts, and so many and fickle the ever- 

 changing conditions of time and tide, wind and wave, on 

 which the fowler's fortunes are wholly dependent, that, how- 

 ever much he may deserve, he cannot command success. 

 Let him always start brimful of confidence, but ever prepared 

 to face total failure without a murmur. 



During fine, mild weather in open seasons, when the fowl 

 have no difficulty in obtaining both food and rest, they often 

 become wholly inaccessible. The fullest practical knowledge, 

 abetted by the most approved appliances* of boat, gun, and 

 gear yet devised by man, are not seldom under these condi- 

 tions of no avail, and prove unequal to the task of circum- 

 venting a single fowl, though thousands may be in sight. 

 These climatic conditions may, and do, prevail for weeks, 

 months, or even a whole season, when hardly a dozen fail- 

 shots will be obtained all the winter. I mention this fact, 

 as some pretentious authors have undertaken to tell us how 

 fowl may be got under all or any conditions. 



Sooner or later, however, the chance will come. It is in 

 the hardest winters, when for weeks at a time the landscape 

 lies buried under a deep mantle of snow in severe and long- 



* This remark may perhaps not be applicable to the latest develop- 

 ments in huge double swivel-guns. I only referred to the punt-guns 

 ordinarily used, not having then seen the monsters alluded to the 

 costliness of which will effectually prevent their coming into general 

 use. 



