NOVEMBER SHOOTING 91 



month, especially with the woodcock on the moun- 

 tains, as well as with duck and snipe. I always 

 carried there a ten-bore gun, because I never knew 

 what would get up, as most of my shooting lay on 

 the borders of Lough Corrib ; sometimes a duck or 

 a goose would give me a shot, so I found a large 

 gun better. The golden plover are capital fun in 

 November. I once killed twenty-one at one shot. 

 I was coming down Lough Corrib in my yacht, and 

 discovered an immense number of plover on one of 

 the small stony flat islands. I got the dingy out, 

 and was sculled quietly down by one of the men. 

 I got within forty yards of them, when they rose, 

 and I gave them both barrels of No. 6 shot. I 

 picked up one-and-twenty, but I think there were 

 one or two more I could not find. I have had 

 very good duck-shooting on the lake, in November, 

 which is twenty-eight miles long, and in one place 

 ten miles wide. My shooting yacht was one of the 

 most comfortable ones I ever saw, only ten tons ; 

 but there was every convenience in it and plenty of 

 room. I used to go away for a week, and the 

 quantities of snipe, cock, and wild fowl I brought 

 back astonished the natives. I would run up some 

 little creek or river of an evening and anchor 

 occasionally ; we cooked on shore when the weather 

 was fine ; we set the night lines, and had always 



