THE MALLARD. ~ | Ise 
probably a hundred miles in the hour. Like other Ducks they 
impel themselves by quickly repeated flaps, without sailings or 
undulations.” 
In this country, where so few sportsmen useor know, or care 
to know, how to use a punt and swivel gun, there is really little 
to be sazd about shooting wild fowl. In rivers you either drift on 
to them ina boat or approach by land under cover of some 
kind—a very easy matter in narrow rivers with high perpendi- 
cular banks. In broads, you similarly creep within shot, or 
in some native dug-out, push through the rushes, getting many 
good, but usually mostly long shots, or preferentially (for the 
first dozen shots generally rouse the majority of the best 
Ducks,) lie up in some rush bed or some reedy isthmus between 
two pieces of water and have the fowl driven over you by beaters. 
This is undoubtedly excellent sport, requiring, if any real 
success is to be attained, a true aim and a hard-hitting gun, 
and resulting, to practised hands, in enormous bags. 
Butler gives an account of one good day he had. He says :— 
“T remember upon one occasion making an extraordinarily 
good bag upon a tank about 35 miles north of Ahmedabad. 
There were two of us out, and we took up our stands at about 
2-30 P.M. At 5-30 P.M. we discontinued shooting, and sent 
coolies into the water to collect the dead and wounded. I laid 
iny birds in rows as they were brought out of the water, 
arranging them according to species, anda more imposing sight 
I never saw. 
“There were eighty birds in all, representing fifteen different 
species, and every one of them was shot separately and on the 
wing, that is to say, there was no firing into the brown of big 
flocks closely packed on the water or mud banks, resulting 
in the death of half a dozen or so at one shot ; the birds, of 
which there were thousands, were kept constantly on the 
wing by coolies beating at both ends of the tank, and as they 
passed our screens, which were erected upon islands in the 
middle of the tank, we selected single birds to shoot at. We 
lost a great many wounded birds that dived immediately they 
fell on the water and were seen no more. My friend shot 47, 
which, added to mine, made a total of 127 ducks in three hours’ 
shooting—a bag, which I imagine, few sportsmen have beaten.” 
Very few of these probably were Mallard, but in small gun 
shooting, the species makes in most cases little difference, while 
with the punt gun, in which you must get a sitting shot, or one 
just as the birds rise, the species makes all the difference in 
the world, and success mainly depends on a thorough knowledge 
of the manner in which each species of fowl will comport itself 
on your approach. Some draw together and rise ez masse, 
and these should only be taken when a foot above the water ; 
others, though drawing together, rise in succession, and these are 
best fired at just before they rise. Others again separate on 
