238 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 
storm, renewed bad weather, likely to be worse; mild winds 
in winter, wet. 
All tales of sea-gulls and wild geese on the land being 
signs of bad weather are not only common errors, but foolish, 
or that cold winters follow hot summers, and an abundance of 
berries being a sign of hard winter, and so on, are equally as 
foolish. 
PUNT-SHOOTING 
Weather does indeed play many important parts in the lot 
of a punter. He depends on it a great deal in more than 
-a few respects. In a general way the weather for punt-shoot- 
ing is looked upon as essentially of a wintry character. This, 
however, is not strictly correct as regards our islands, for in 
mild winter seasons and autumn some very good sport can be 
secured at selected times. Wintry weather, though it may not 
play any direct part in the sport of an individual day, yet is 
often the indirect cause of good sport during mild weather or 
winters in our islands. We mean by this that severe weather 
abroad is as much, or more, the cause of good sport with punt 
and gun in our islands as local wintry effects. To give punt- 
shooting a seasonable term, we must place it amongst the 
sports of winter ; although, as we have said, the sport can con- 
veniently and pleasantly be indulged in during autumn, and, 
as there is no British law to the contrary, we must make men- 
tion of possibilities, though at the same time adding that 
autumn (especially early autumn) punt-shooting is rather ex- 
ceptional than regular. Autumn is, no doubt, the best season 
for the beginner to practise, for then he can choose more 
genial circumstances than are likely ever to be present in mid- 
winter. 
It must not be supposed that, when speaking of punting 
as a winter sport, it is one that must be carried on in the 
wildest and roughest of wintry weather. Far from this, it is a 
