CHAPTER VIII 



PUNT-GUNNING 



*' So ! You take a punt and a 

 cannon, blaze into masses of 

 slumbering birds, killing and 

 maiming them, utterly regard- 

 less of how many you gather, 

 and call that sport ? Well, give 

 me a hardy Norfolk retriever, 

 the run of an Essex marsh, and 

 all the best-stocked estuaries in 

 this limited kingdom would not 

 tempt me to enter one of your 

 damp, rotten, diminutive old 

 mud barges, to 

 drift into large 

 flocks of fowl 

 and kill a hun- 

 dred at a shot. 

 Why don't you 

 start a decoy ? 

 You could have 

 the satisfaction 

 of wringing 

 each one's neck 

 separately 

 yourself, which 



would give you far more gratification than killing them all at 

 once, I'm sure." 



Thus ventured to speak an almost anti-shooting member 

 of our party, who actually had the audacity to express his 

 personal opinion in the face of our thoroughly practical com- 



A PUNTSMAN SPYING. 



