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THE STALE. 
evidently not adopted by the English troops till several 
years afterwards. 
It will readily be understood by all sportsmen, that with 
such a weapon as the “ caliver,” much practice and 
patience must have been requisite to bring it within range 
of the fowl, and use it with effect. The successful use of 
a modern punt-gun necessitates an amount of skill and 
judgment which those only who have tried it can really 
appreciate. How much greater must have been the 
difficulties of the wild-fowler of the sixteenth century, 
whose rude gun and inferior powder necessitated a much 
nearer approach to the birds! We can sympathize with 
Cardinal Beaufort,' when he exclaimed— 
“ Believe me, cousin Gloster, 
Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly, 
We had had more sport.” 
Henry VI. Part II. Act ii. Sc. i. 
The wild-fowler who could not succeed in “stalking” 
and shooting the birds in the way we have described, 
often employed another method of securing them, namely, 
by means of “ a stale,” as it was termed. This was a 
stuffed bird of the species the fowler wished to decoy, and 
which was set up in as natural a position as possible, either 
before a net or in the midst of several “springes.” By 
imitating the call of the passing birds, the fowler would 
draw their attention to the “stale,” and as soon as they 
