90 VARIETIES OP SHOOTING. 



which may be either the banks of a small brook or of a lake. 

 If the former, a good spaniel or setter must be employed to 

 search the banks, and push out the ducks, the old one being 

 generally the first to show herself, but usually out of shot, 

 unless her brood are unable to fly, when she will often 

 sacrifice herself in trying to draw off attention from them. 

 On lakes or large rivers a boat or punt must be used, in 

 which the shooter proceeds to the reeds on the banks, or on 

 any small islets where he suspects the ducks to harbour; 

 then sending his dog quietly into them, he picks off the 

 flappers as they make their appearance. They are easily 

 shot, No. 6 being quite sufficiently large, and a common 

 game-gun is the proper one for the purpose. As the indi- 

 viduals composing the brood generally get iip pretty quickly 

 one after the other, a breech loader will be found to be a 

 great convenience. Young ducks, a little older than to be 

 called flappers, are often met with in August and September 

 on the small pools where dogs go for water, either in grouse 

 or partridge shooting. 



WINTER WILDFOWL SHOOTING ON INLAND WATERS. 



From the watchful nature of all wildfowl, they demand 

 the greatest possible caution in approaching them, and to 

 get a shot at them requires almost as much preparation as at 

 a red deer in the forest. The shooter, dressed in the quietest 

 colours possible, and provided with his well- trained retriever, 

 his telescope, and his heavy double-barrelled gun, which 

 should carry two ounces of shot, proceeds first of all to make 

 out, by means of his glass, the exact position of the flock 

 he is about to stalk ; or if this is impossible, from the nature 

 of the water, he must approach the bank as quietly as 

 possible, and as near as may be to the most probable feeding- 

 grounds. When at last he sees the surface of the water, he 

 must be prepared for a quick shot either at a group on it, or 

 at single birds on the wing. From the constant windings of 

 narrow rivers and small streams, and from the disturbance 

 on large ones caused by the traffic, it is seldom that sitting 

 shots can be obtained on them, and the shooter must be con- 

 tent with flying shots, which are usually long ones and 



