WILD FOWLING 



' ^ ■ ^ HIS sport ' says George Edie in his Treatise on English 

 I Shooting (1772) ' though very good when wild fowl 



■ are plenty is very little practised by Gentlemen 



"^^ owing to the several disagreeable circumstances 



attending it.' 



It must be admitted that the account of wild fowling as 

 pursued on the Hampshire coast, given by the Rev. William 

 Gilpin/ suggests keenness as the first essential. 



' Fowling and fishing are indeed on this coast commonly 

 the employments of the same person. He who in summer 

 with his line or net plies the shores when they are overflowed 

 by the tide, in winter with his gun, as evening draws on, runs 

 up in his boat among the little creeks which the tide leaves 

 in the mud — lands and lies in patient expectation of his prey. 



' Sea fowl usually feed by night, when in all their multitudes 

 they come down to graze on the Savannahs of the shore. As 

 the sonorous cloud advances (for their noise in the air resem- 

 bles a pack of hounds in full cry) the attentive fowler listens 

 which way they bend their course : perhaps he has the mortifi- 

 cation to hear them alight at too great a distance for his gun 

 (though of the longest barrel) to reach them : and if he can- 

 not edge his boat round some winding creek, which it is not 

 always in his power to do, he despairs of success that night : 

 perhaps however he is more fortunate, and has the satisfaction 

 to hear the airy noise approach nearer, till at length the host 

 settles in some plain upon the edge of which his boat is moored : 

 he now, as silently as possible, primes both the pieces anew 

 (for he is generally double-armed) and listens with all his atten- 



' Remarks on Forest Scenery and other Woodland Views, written 1781, published 1791. 



112 



