PUNT-GUNNING 99 



and again tempted out by exceptional circumstances, or by 

 the close of the season being near at hand. It is more 

 particularly to be deprecated because the waning light 

 necessarily causes great loss and waste in cripples, but an 

 occasional good shot at that hour is made after rough 

 weather, at a bunch of fowl in a favourable position for re- 

 covering the killed or maimed. 



Fourthly and finally, gunning under the moon is con- 

 sidered far from satisfactory ; it is highly injurious to the 

 shooting grounds, and it is very seldom that the gunner 

 makes any really good results from this latter method of 

 shooting, except by launching a very laborious and dirty 

 pursuit at any time ; in fact, as Buffon would have said, " Le 

 jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle." 



A successful shot under the stars, judging entirely by 

 sound, is possible, but it is more than probable that under 

 those conditions the shooter would have to feel for the dead 

 with an oar, not bagging half what he had killed. What 

 can be more unsatisfactory than this ? The same remark 

 applies also to a very great extent to the former manner of 

 shooting, and birds in moonlight are shyer and more difficult 

 to handle than in broad daylight, although occasionally 

 telling shots are pulled off when a friendly cloud temporarily 

 obscures the light of the moon. But, unfortunately, these 

 said nebulae have an obstinate plan of always uncovering at 

 the wrong moment, showing you up to the birds as a brightly- 

 reflected star of rather unpleasant magnitude. Another 

 drawback to gunning by night is the great danger attendant 

 thereon from icefloes, especially on an ebb tide, as one some- 

 times gets caught in a great ice-field, and can neither see its ex- 

 tent nor find out how to circumvent it or force a way through, 

 to say nothing of the chance of being nipped, which may occur 

 at the least expected moment, whilst all the time the punts- 

 man is rapidly drifting far out to sea in a perfectly helpless 

 condition ; or, to make matters worse, sudden squalls of snow 

 may arise, which either swamp him then and there, or chafe his 



