WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 381 



Lakes, with a marsh on one side, and a wood on the other, are 

 seldom without vast quantities of wild fowl ; and where a couple 



at from a flint gun, the instant they observe the flash in the pan, they 

 take wing, and are thus frequently missed. The advantage of a per- 

 cussion gnn is, in this case, strikingly manifest, as there is scarcely any 

 perceptible flash at the touch-hole, while the discharge is so much quicker, 

 so very instantaneous, that the birds are struck before they can possibly 

 get on the wing. At the same time, these shy birds may be reached at 

 much greater distances than with the common flint lock, owing to the 

 very superior force with which the shot is thrown from the percussion 

 gun ; a fact which I could not credit, till, from repeated experiment,^ 

 was no longer possible to entertain a doubt on the subject; the advantage 

 of this mode of discharging the fowling-piece is still more evident when 

 used for the purpose of shooting what are called divers. I was scarcely 

 ever able to kill one of these birds with a flint lock ; for though they will 

 allow the shooter to approach within a short distance (as if conscious of 

 their power to escape), yet the very instant they see the flash from the 

 pan, they disappear, and are under the water in a moment: they are easily 

 killed, however, with the percussion gun, for the reasons already stated. 

 In the Isle of Man, puffins are met with in great abundance; they 

 are fat, ily, and altogether very strongly flavoured and unpleasant to 

 the taste, in defiance of every possible care and pains in cooking them; 

 they deposit their eggs in holes of the ground, in the interior of the 

 island, many of which are picked up by the inhabitants, and sold princi- 

 pally in the Liverpool market. The Isle of IVTan seems, indeed, the 

 particular resort of sea-fowl; as, independently of the large quantity of 

 puffins, which frequent the interior, for the purpose of breeding, birds of 

 the gull kind are in still greater abundance, if possible, and, in the breed- 

 ing season, may be seen in myriads flying and screaming among the 

 craggy rocks on the shore, on the ledges, and in the crevices of which 

 they hatch and bring up their young. They are often very wantonly 

 destroyed, and that too, sometimes, before the young brood are able to 

 provide for themselves. Thoughtless sportsmen coast the island in 

 boats for the purpose of shooting these birds ; and the moment a gun is 

 fired among the rocks, numbers of gulls immediately issue from the cre- 

 vices, and hover over the shooter's head, within gun-shot, and the sports- 

 man may continue to fire till he has either loaded the boat or tired himself. 



