SPORTING FOR MEN OF MODERATE MEANS 281 



bargain. My old sailor, who had been all his life 

 about those wild, desolate, and God-forgotten 

 islands, " the Arran," was a rare fisherman. He 

 always managed the night lines, and when we have 

 been anchored at the mouth of the Clare Galway 

 river for the night, of a morning the lines have 

 been loaded with eels, some of four and even five 

 pounds in weight. If we baited for them, some- 

 times we had large catches of pike and trout. 



I think cross-line fishing, or an otter, is still 

 allowed on the lake ; but I never went in for this, 

 you require a licence for it. 



Of a night, at flight time in July, the young 

 ducks — they were more than " flappers " — used to 

 come up from the lake and marshy grounds in 

 numbers to the cornfields, and we generally gave it 

 to them hot, morning and evening ; and in parts of 

 the lake we used to get " flapper " shooting. It 

 was endless amusement to me, roaming about on 

 the different islands knocking over a few rabbits, or 

 sometimes a duck or snipe. I always carried a 

 ten-bore gun with me, shooting four drachms of 

 powder and two ounces of shot. I never knew 

 what was going to get up ; occasionally I had a 

 crack at an otter asleep on the stones. Sometimes 

 a duck would spring when I least expected it ; 

 there was no knowing. In winter we were obliged 



