THE LAST DAY OF WILDFOWLING. 277 



Boanerges gunning-punt. First the big gun had to be 

 loaded. Down her long barrel rattle the 32 drains " Colonel 

 Hawker," followed by 10 ounces of BB the priming is 

 carefully inserted, and the cap fixed. Then she is gently ad- 

 justed into position the gear, ammunition, &c., all stowed, 

 everything in its place, for aboard a gunning-punt there is 

 not a square inch of room to spare and away we go. With 

 a brilliant moon, a dead-calm sea, and a flowing tide, we pro- 

 ceed right merrily, and our hopes rise rapidly on so favour- 

 able a night surely we shall manage a heavy shot at the 

 Wigeon ! But it was not to be. At 3 A.M. a change came 

 over the scene. The western horizon suddenly banked up 

 with cloud masses, and we presently heard afar that strange 

 rustling sound, like the distant rumble of an approaching 

 express, which at sea foretells wind. On it came. In ten 

 short minutes the driving clouds were scudding across the 

 moon, and what had been calm white water was lashed into 

 a confused black mass. For some time we persisted in shov- 

 ing to windward, but our efforts to gain the weather-shore were 

 in vain. Sea after sea broke into us, and the chance for the 

 night was clearly gone. For a couple of weary hours we 

 sought shelter on a desolate bent-grown sandspit. Then the 

 ebb tide forced us to quit this refuge, and make the best we 

 could of our passage back to bed. Thus ended attempt 

 No. 1 a failure; and No. 2 failed likewise. Before day- 

 break we were out again at the " morning flight," but though 

 we saw plenty of fowl, with a fair show of Geese, not a single 

 shot rewarded our two hours' vigil, and at 9 A.M. we returned 

 a second time empty-handed (and empty elsewhere) to break- 

 fast. Such, in plain fact, is but the common luck of coast 

 wildfowling the most difficult, uncertain, yet withal one 

 of the most exciting of all our British sports. It is amus- 

 ing to read of hecatombs of the wary birds slaughtered on 

 paper, and still more so to see the lightsome mood in which 

 the undertaking is often essayed by " 'prentice hands" ; but 

 after years of practice the writer can confidently state that, 

 though patient, dogged perseverance and skill will from time 

 to time reap their due reward in most gratifying success, yet 

 there is no royal road thereto, nor on salt water will duck- 



