SHORE SHOOTING 119 



he retires in precisely the same manner that he had 

 advanced, with the exception that the tubs are ready for im- 

 mediate occupation, and they do not require re-bailing. 



During stormy and unsettled weather considerable sport 

 can be obtained by this dodge, but on a public estuary certain 

 risks must be run of being shot by a punter. For it must be 

 remembered that from the angle at which a staunchion gun 

 is fired shot travels considerable distances, and the fact that 

 the head of the tubbist is on the exact level at which the big 

 guns are discharged does not add materially to his comfort. 



Fourthly, there is the man who erects huts of rough boughs 

 covered with sods or sand, allowing them to become over- 

 grown with grass like the winter dwelling of the Laplander. 

 Their usual situation is a promontory jutting into the estuary, 

 or some similar commanding position, and their use is to 

 afford the gunner a retreat at high- water time ; the few birds 

 that may then be leading about being thus intercepted. But 

 this plan is not half so successful as " tubbing," although the 

 two are often combined. 



On larger estuaries, during the last few hours of flood, the 

 birds curlews in particular collecting in their hundreds and 

 thousands, select some open spot for rest and repose, where, 

 posting their sentinels, they are in absolute security, defying 

 every effort at approach. Every dodge and ingenious device 

 imaginable may be resorted to in order to take them un- 

 awares and to endeavour to place a " home thrust " into their 

 midst whilst they are so engaged, but all to no purpose ; for 

 although, in contradiction to the infallible weasel, they can be 

 caught napping, their sentinels and outposts are ever on the 

 alert, and, whether it be night or day, however light or dark, they 

 invariably raise the alarm, and the mighty cloud of birds departs, 

 so to speak, under the very nose of the chagrined shooter. 



On the smaller estuaries it is the same, with this difference, 

 that instead of collecting in open spaces, which are naturally 

 few and far between, the fowl make for the open sea, there to 

 sleep and plume themselves, whilst the waders adjourn to 

 moors, morasses, marshes or swamps that may be contiguous, 



