108 ANATID/E. 



fatal effect. The birds are generally fired at on the water^ but 

 sometimes on wing also. They have^ as a natural consequence,, 

 become much wilder and more on the alert since these large guns 

 have come into use. 



Inland Shooting. — Strangford Lough has its own immense 

 stock of wigeon, which remain always there during the season, as 

 well as its daily visitors fi'om the neighbouring bay, for it also 

 produces the favourite Zostera in abundance. A chain of high 

 hills lies between these two marine loughs, and, as the wigeon 

 flew pretty much over the same track, it was a regular practice of 

 shooters to station themselves behind the fences about the hill- 

 toj) before daybreak, to get a shot at the birds as they passed over- 

 head. Hence some persons regularly went from Belfast, a distance 

 of three Irish miles, in the dark, on the chance of getting a 

 passing shot. When quite calm and tine, the birds generally ilew 

 high and out of range, but when blowing hard, and especiallyif 

 against them, they kept low, and shots were tolerably certain to 

 be had. They flew so very low, when it blew a gale, that, in the 

 words of the shooters, " the flocks had to rise to get over the 

 ditches \"^ But this sport, like the barrel- shooting, has been 

 discontinued on account of the diminished number of birds. 



"When a low tract of marshy ground, called the bog-meadows — 

 commencing about a mile and a half from the town of BeKast, 

 and extending a mile in length — is flooded in winter, wigeon, 

 and others of the duck tribe, resort to it at twihght to feed. 

 The ditch-banks, which divide the fields, remaining dry, are then 

 frequented by fowlers to get shots at the birds as they pass. If 

 it be about the time of high water, when they cannot feed in the 

 bay, different species fly thence to these meadows, and do so 

 regularly from inland places of security where they have been 

 throughout the day ; but not very many were killed here during my 

 own experience of wild-fowl shooting, and now the pursuit is 

 almost abandoned. I have often gone for this sport, and felt a 

 kind of wild joy in hearing the ringing of the pinions througli 



* ' Ditrh' in the north of Ireland is ajiplied to the bank of earth, and not to the 

 sunken portion of the fence. 



