312 MANUAL FOE YOUNG BPOETSMEN. 



while the tide is rising, as fast as the power and skill of 

 the man who pushes the sportsman with a long punt pole 

 can accomplish. The higher the water, and the greater 

 the speed at which the skiff is propelled, the more the 

 sport. The birds will only take wing when the tide is 

 rising, and then only when the boat is forced upon them 

 with such rapidity that they can neither run nor swim 

 away from it. When they have no other choice, they flap 

 up just as the gunwale is run over them, fly awkwardly 

 and lazily away for ten or twenty yards, and then drop 

 again, if not knocked over, which can be done with the 

 merest touch of the shot. 



Unless they are killed dead, however, they are rarely re- 

 covered, as when wounded they dive to the bottom, and hold 

 on to the weeds and water-grass till life actually leaves them. 

 All the skill in this sport lies in the pusher, and with him, 

 in fact, it depends whether the gunner has sport or no ; 

 for he has not only to push the boat, on which depends half 

 the battle, but to mark the birds which go down, whether 

 dead or without a shot, to a yard's distance, and if killed, 

 to retrieve them. 



All that the shooter has in fact got to do, is to stand 

 firmly in the boat as it runs over the smooth, moist weeds, 

 which is a knack easly acquired with a little practice, and 

 to shoot as slowly and as coolly as he can. 



The birds get up so close to him and fly so slowly, that 

 he cannot, if he were to try, be too slow or deliberate 

 with them. The further they get away, the surer he is 

 not only not to miss, but to bring them to bag without 

 smashing or disfiguring them. As to missing them, after 



