340 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
from punts, are strictly prohibited, as they cause the fowl 
wholly to desert places where such practices obtain, and are 
esteemed—and that deservedly—unsportsmanlike, and un- 
worthy of gentlemen. 
For all fowl shooting on salt water, where the saline 
particles of the atmosphere disorganize the gunpowder 
from their affinity with the saltpetre, large coarse-grained 
cannon powder is preferable to the finer article, and the 
best of all is Hawker’s ducking powder, prepared by Cur- 
tis and Harvey. This, with the best of Starkey’s central 
fire-caps, will insure the discharge of the gun even ina 
sea-mist. 
For the rest, [ think fowl shooters almost invariably 
overcharge with powder, and use shot of too coarse a 
grain. The shot is amply large, which will break the pin- 
ion of the game at which it is fired, at seventy yards. All 
extra weight is thrown away, with a positive loss in the 
number of shot lodged in the same space. 
SS in green cartridges are all very well for wild swan 
shooting, and in 4 oz. cartridges for a gun of 5 calibre, it 
will be difficult to say how far they will not carry, and 
kill. I should dislike marvellously to be in the fair range 
of one at half a mile. BB is proper for geese or brant, 
but for all other fowl, for the largest shoulder-guns 1 or 2 
is amply large for any range ; and from guns not exceeding 
10 gauge, No 3 or 4 will do more execution. Equal meas- 
ures, not weights, of shot and powder, are, in my judg- 
ment, the best proportions for all guns. 
Sea-shooting of wild fowl, as it is practised on all the 
bays as they are improperly called, being in truth shallow, 
