344 MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



In those waters, however, the shores for the most part 

 beloDging to comparatively few and wealthy proprietors, 

 the points and islands being, as I have observed, ordinarily 

 rented by clubs of sportsmen, and the excellence and 

 actual value of the game being of sufficient importance to 

 render its protection an object, the laws are rigidly en- 

 forced, preservation is effected, and notwithstanding the 

 countless multitudes which are yearly destroyed, they do 

 not appear very materially to decrease in number. 



The other mode, described above, of shooting from 

 boats moored among the hassocks in the bays, is not liable 

 to this objection, as the birds are shot, not while in the 

 act of feeding, but always on the wing, as they are passing 

 up and down from one flat to another, accordingly as this 

 is submerged too deeply, or that left wholly bare, by the 

 rising or falling of the tide. 



This, it seems, does not molest or disturb them to such 

 a degree as to cause their abandonment of the neighbor- 

 hood, and only operates so far as to render them shy 

 and fearful of the points whence they are peppered, 

 causing them to fly down the middle of the bays and 

 channels, without passing over the land, if they can 

 avoid it. 



This it is which gives scope to all the gunner's ingenu- 

 ity, both in the selection of his points in reference to the 

 wind which may be blowing, and his knowledge of the 

 feeding grounds, in order that the fowl, as they are driven 

 up from the outer beaches by the rising tides to the inner 

 marshes, may be jammed down by stress of weather upon 

 the station which he has chosen ; and in imitating the 



