CHAPTER VII. 



PUNT SHOOTING. 



GOOD reader, if you have never sat all night long 

 shivering in a gunning punt in the winter, I should 

 strongly advise you not to try it, unless you are 

 made of very patient and very tough materials. I 

 have heard the game of cricket designated as a " hot 

 and dangerous pastime " ; you will find gunning quite 

 the reverse, and it may justly be termed "a cold 

 and dangerous pastime " ; but it has its charms, and 

 in spite of cold, and frost, and snow, it is a sport 

 that, more than any, grows upon one. There is 

 something most exciting, on a still, starlight or moon- 

 light night in winter, in sitting in a punt and hearing 

 the different calls and notes of wild birds, and the 

 whistling of their wings as they come in flocks from 

 distant parts and from miles out at sea to their feed- 

 ing-grounds. I know nothing finer than the sound 



