244 THE STALE. 
evidently not adopted by the English troops till several 
years afterwards. 
It will readily be understood by all sportsmen, that with 
such a weapon as the “caliver,” much practice and 
patience must have been requisite to bring it within range 
of the fowl, and use it with effect. The successful use of 
a modern punt-gun necessitates an amount of skill and 
judgment which those only who have tried it can really 
appreciate. How much greater must have been the 
difficulties of the wild-fowler of the sixteenth century, 
whose rude gun and inferior powder necessitated a much 
nearer approach to the birds! We can sympathize with 
Cardinal Beaufort, when he exclaimed— 
“ Believe me, cousin Gloster, 
Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly, 
We had had more sport.” 
Flenry VI. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1. 
The wild-fowler who could not succeed in “stalking” 
and shooting the birds in the way we have described, 
often employed another method of securing them, namely, 
by means of “a stale,” as it was termed. This was a 
stuffed bird of the species the fowler wished to decoy, and 
which was set up in as natural a position as possible, either 
before a net or in the midst of several “springes.” By 
imitating the call of the passing birds, the fowler would 
draw their attention to the “stale,” and as soon as they 
