272 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



compiled from decoy records, have been published 

 by men who were well acquainted with the matter. 

 Comparatively recently, that is to say, only forty 

 years ago, I saw such quantities of fowl taken there 

 and at the mouth of the Thames and Medway, 

 that an attempt to give any idea of the numbers 

 would seem ridiculous. They were there for all to 

 see and to get if they could ; and as far as reducing 

 their numbers was concerned, shooting made no 

 more difference than dropping half-a-dozen out of 

 one of the great flocks of sparrows that congregate 

 after the corn has been carried ; the fowl are shot 

 both on the tide and on the slub, but the numbers 

 dropped are a mere nothing. 



Given the most favourable conditions and the 

 greatest exercise of both care and skill, thirty 

 dead fowl is in my opinion a good shot from a punt 

 gun. This number has been placed in a punt 

 from one shot, but what is that out of thousands .'' 

 It is dangerous work anyway, both for professional 

 fowlers — that is, those who live by it in the season 

 — and for the gentlemen fowlers who fowl for sport. 

 Wild-fowling is very expensive when all is reckoned 

 up, but it is the cream of sport. 



Seeing fowl and getting at them are two different 

 things. Men will give at times vivid accounts of 

 their fowling experiences in and on the places I 

 have mentioned. Not so much accounts of fowl 

 killed, but of their own escape from death-traps. 

 Some would tell that no fowl were to be had there. 

 There may not have been for them, yet all kinds 



