WILDFOWL AND WILDFOWLING 
^ ^ ILDFOWL — ^which term, for the present, may be restricted 
/ to wild geese and ducks — comprise a very large pro- 
jjC / portion of the most valuable species of the bird -world 
t both as regards the sport they afford, and their edible 
V excellence. 
f ▼ Wildfowling, by its nature, is always uncertain, always 
difficult ; it commonly involves the endurance of considerable discomfort, 
if not of hardship ; and not seldom of actual danger. These are presumably 
the reasons that condemn the pursuit of wildfowl in the eyes of the 
vast majority. But they are also the reasons that entrance and inflame 
the enthusiasm of an inspired minority. Beyond all doubt or denial, 
wildfowling promises no sort of ideal for the easygoing, nor for the 
lazy, the old, or infirm in health. But the other sort — the young and 
fiery; those who love difficulties and adventures, who seek danger, 
and ensue it — what of them ? They have latterly found a better field for 
their energies than British wildfowling, even at its best, afforded. 
The sort that, thirty or forty years ago, revelled in laborious days and 
nights afloat on our British coasts, counting no cost, and amply repaid 
by a scant and fortuitous reward in wigeon and wild geese — these men 
now seek lions and elephants in Equatoria, moose and cariboo in Alaska, 
big game and adventure in a hundred far away hunting -fields. Be the 
cause as indicated, or otherwise, the outstanding fact remains beyond 
question — that amateur wildfowling on our British coasts is all but 
neglected at the present day. 
To write on wildfowling in such circumstances is not an encourag- 
ing task, and I should never have attempted doing so but for the too 
flattering desire of the publishers of this work. 
Colonel Hawker’s classic writings of a century ago stimulated an in- 
terest in this difficult pursuit that has never entirely died away. Since 
his day, a dozen other wildfowlers, not one of whom, including myself, 
would presume to compare with “ the Colonel,” have had recourse to 
print ; but none of these efforts have availed to dispel the prevalent apathy, 
not to say antipathy, displayed towards an avocation that is worshipped 
only by a few, and condemned by all the rest as “only fit for fishermen ” ! It 
verily seems that the more the art of wildfowling is expounded in print, 
the less it is pursued in practice. As I have said, the enterprising section of 
the present generation have preferred to seek adventure abroad, and they 
384 
