WILDFOWL AND WILDFOWLING 
samphire and laver, the sea-wrack or emerald-green zostera replace 
russet fern, moss and sphagnum. Not a tree nor a bush grows within 
view, nor can a hill be descried, save dimly in farthest distance. 
Note that there is no “ scenery ” where wildfowl gather. The fowler’s 
whole environment is transformed as completely as though he had 
changed his world. But the charm of the sea — that is, of those desolate 
places by the sea — is a subtle sentiment undefinable by words of mine. 
The ceaseless ebb and flow, w'ith its effects — altering every hour, and 
twice a day varying the life -conditions of a thousand living organisms-— 
is a commonplace only to the callous. 
Beyond all is the novelty — the grace, the beauty and the variety — of the 
fresh forms of bird -life by which the wanderer now finds himself sur- 
rounded. Close at hand the glistening sands are ornamented by groups 
of sedate sea-gulls, each figure exquisitely mirrored on the moist surface 
beneath. Along the shore course tiny waders, hundreds of them, nimble 
as frightened mice, some venturing breast -deep in miniature wavelets to 
secure an escaping zoophite. Beyond, where sand -worms have dotted 
the ooze with countless castings, probe curlews and redshanks; while 
further away, hosts of chattering godwits mark afar the unwelcome 
intrusion. 
Such sights and sounds as these, remember, greet you from the very 
outset — they are there to charm eye and ear while launching the gunning - 
punt hard by your cottage door. They are but everyday incidents of the 
fowler’s surroundings. 
But now we are afloat. The trim craft shoots ahead across rippled 
shallows, crystal -clear, and the salt spray leaps and dances around 
her sharp bows and surges along the rounded decks. Within an 
hour’s time, or maybe two, we get within touch of true wild- 
fowl, and witness spectacles of wild bird -life that few, very few bird- 
lovers have yet enjoyed. I emphasize this fact since, numerous as are 
naturalists — and wildfowlers hardly less so — ^yet the combination of the 
two characters is strangely rare. Of all our many keen ornithologists, 
I cannot call to mind a dozen who have ever spent a winter’s day afloat 
in a gunning -punt. Yet those craft appear to offer the only available 
means to study wildfowl in actual life. Nor can I remember a dozen 
wildfowlers who have ever taken a living scientific interest in the 
beautiful creatures whose pursuit they love. Among those rare excep- 
tions there occur to mind the late E. T. Booth, whose “ Rough Notes ” 
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