WILD WILD-DUCK 313 



best local fowler whose services he can buy. The latter must 

 telegraph the instant that the weather and the fowl together 

 forecast the coming storm, and the birds know before ther- 

 mometer and barometer together can indicate what is to be. 

 Then the gunner must take the first train and telegraph to his 

 fowler to make all arrangements, otherwise there may be a 

 day's loss of time when he does arrive, because his fowler will 

 be where the thickest of the fowl are, and there will be nobody 

 left behind who knows exactly where that is at any precise 

 period of the day or night. All who do know will be engaged 

 in the slaughter for themselves, for on the free saltings and the 

 shore all men are equal who are good fowlers, and the others 

 do not count. 



When such weather as this comes, history is going to be 

 made, history that will last a hardy honest small community a 

 decade or more to discuss, and for the robust it is well worth 

 joining in, but it is also worth paying for, and a good price too. 

 It is true that by showing you around a wildfowler does not lose 

 his own sport, or not all of it ; but unless you are a good sports- 

 man as well as a good shot, your joint bags will not equal that 

 of an experienced fowler by himself, and consequently luxuries 

 at zero and in a gale of snow have to be paid for on a basis far 

 higher than ordinary keeper's tips. That is, they have to if you 

 want to come in for the cream of the sport. 



THE "GAZE" SYSTEM 



The "gaze" system of shooting is a Hampshire Avon 

 equivalent for the shooting from tubs that has been practised 

 for many years. The shooting from the latter is much more 

 suitable for large marshes and open sheets of water, whereas the 

 " gaze " is a brushwood or furze construction suitable for the 

 river bank. But they are alike in this that the shooting of 

 many guns keeps the fowl upon the move, whether they ring 

 round pools and marshes or follow the course of a stream. The 

 habit of all fowl to prefer flying over water enables a duck 

 " drive " (for these two methods are duck drives) to be success- 



