THE WIGEON AND POCHARDS 267 



pattens are ready, no time is to be lost on cripples ; 

 " the dead are dead, but cripples are lively," all 

 fowlers know that saying. Your heavy shoulder 

 duck-gun is over the bows of the punt, you are lying 

 at the bottom of it flat on your breast. "It cannot 

 be less than four," you fancy, " let the worst come." 



Your legs are cramped in that humble position. 

 You move one of them a very little, and your heel 

 just hooks off one of those mud-pattens. Down 

 it rattles, and you have spoilt not only your own 

 chance but that of others. Plenty of food and fair 

 weather cause the fowl to " feed picksome," as it is 

 called ; in other words, not being hungry they are 

 on the alert. You may see flashes and hear guns 

 from other fowlers, hid up much nearer to you 

 than you would have suspected ; but they are all 

 flight-shots, some of them being to very good pur- 

 pose, for flop ! flop ! flop ! can be heard, as they fall 

 down on the ooze. The best thing for you to do 

 is to paddle your way out and go home, miserably 

 conscious that you have managed, although uninten- 

 tionally, to wake up the flats for this tide. 



Fair shots on the ooze confuse fowl, but any 

 mishap such as has just been described alarms 

 them. The reader must distinctly understand that 

 I am describing the ways and means of local 

 fowlers, who have their punts made to suit their own 

 notions ; most of them, in fact, being home-made, 

 and the long, heavy shoulder-guns are temporarily 

 rigged up as punt-guns. Plenty of fowl are killed 

 at the present time in this way by some of the 



