PUNT-SHOOTING AS A SPORT 131 
when they do get the chance, shoot their shore-birds in: 
splendid style. These men usually know better, and, although 
they would have one' believe they know nothing further of 
wildfowling than they profess as shore-gunners, they generally 
have enough sense not to say anything about matters they 
have not actually experienced. The class we need recall are, 
again, those who think they are shore-shooters ; yet, worse 
luck, they invariably fail to prove what they contend. We 
make no inclusion here of professional wildfowlers. Sport 
in its true sense is a non-return game. Thus we cannot hold 
the poor professional shooter of the coast to be always a 
sportsman—at least, in our way of thinking. His plan is to 
get fowl, whether by fair means or foul, for he seeks the birds 
for remuneration, and not for pleasure. And who can blame 
him in his cause? He depends on the birds for his livelihood. 
They are his wages, his very meat and drink. Nevertheless, 
many of these poor chaps are excellent sportsmen. We should 
all remember that in true sport duke and peasant are but one. 
Shore-shooting is a fine art, but real wildfowling at its best 
can hardly be experienced along-shore, not because the sport 
of shore-gunning does not possess as much charm as punting, 
but mainly because the wildest of wildfowl are not usually shot 
in numbers on the verge of the mainland proper. The chief 
haunts of large numbers of brent geese, widgeon, and other 
wary fowl are the wide, open stretches of shore and estuary 
which lie at various places around our coast. To shoot them 
in such places one must be afloat. The largest shoulder guns 
can do but little service amongst them. Even the odds against 
a punt and large gun are more often in favour of the birds than 
otherwise. Far out yonder, on that long bar of ooze, sit the 
brent—a thousand strong. How are we to shoot them? Not 
a handful of sea-ware can move within a mile radius without 
detection by the eyes of these unapproachable birds. The 
punter has them there to deal with, for the shore-gunner has no 
