Pnnt-shooting. 



The pursuit is hazardous, especially when there 

 is much ice in the river, by which they some- 

 times get encircled, and then can only float with 

 the current, and are kept often two or three tides 

 before they can extricate themselves, and their 

 punt is ill calculated to sustain pressure against 

 its tides, which are not twenty inches high from 

 the surface of the water; in this the punter by 

 night drops down with the tide, or uses his pad- 

 dles after the fowl: he knows their haunts, and 

 takes every advantage of wind, tide, moon, &c. 

 His gun, which carries as much as a little can- 

 non, is laid with the muzzle over the stem of the 

 punt, in a hitch which regulates the line of aim : 

 at the bottom of the punt he lies upon his belly, 

 and gets as near the roui of fowl that are upon 

 the water as possible. When within the range 

 of his gun, he rattles with hrs feet against the 

 bottom of his punt, and when the fowl begin to 

 spring at this unexpected sound, at that moment 

 lie pulls the trigger and cuts a lane through 

 their ranks ; he instantly follows the direction of 

 his shot and gathers up those that are killed, or 

 just expiring, for very seldom he makes it answer 

 to row after fowl only wounded ; he then charges 

 his gun and drifts further down the river, in hopes 

 of a second, third, and successive shots. By 

 this mode one man has brought home from four- 

 score to an hundred wild-fowl, of various kinds 

 in one night's excursion. 



