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to all appearance like her might be made for 6 pounds; and, after all, for gunning, not worth 6 shillings!

Having stated the foregoing improvements, the plate from Varley's drawing might be a sufficient guide for this punt, as well as for the original one: but, in order to have the improvement still better understood, I here present my readers with a wood-cut, after a perfect model, that I had made expressly for the purpose of its being drawn from, for the last edition; and, in order to see it properly done, as well as that for the single-gun-punt, I went 100 miles and back, accompanied by an excellent modeller.

N. B. This last new punt is what I recommend as perfection. But I shall still retain the old steel engraving in order to show the appendages. But for improved mooring covers, see the new frontispiece.

sport; and afterwards join in the "cripple chase." [Vide plate.]

So far superior is this diversion to what people are aware of, that I have never yet met with a solitary instance of one sportsman, who had seen it in perfection, but what was quite elated; and preferred even a sight of it to the best day's game shooting in the kingdom. It is therefore condemned as an occupation for rustics only by those who know nothing whatever about it.

Let those who fancy punt-shooting such a dangerous amusement, compare the accidents that happen in it, with those in fox-hunting, battû shooting, or any other sport, and see in which they most frequently occur: though this pursuit is generally followed by poor men, who have the worst, the others, by gentlemen, who are provided with the best, of every thing. In Poole harbour, for instance, where the channels, at times, are far more dangerous than in most other places, I should, at a rough guess, say, there were, on an average, a hundred canoes; and yet, for these last thirty-one years, which is as long as I have known the place, I have never heard of but one man being drowned, and he was not only subject to fits, but had left the shore when in liquor.

I here allude to open punts, than which decked ones are of course infinitely less exposed to danger.

SHOOTING WITH A STANCHION-GUN FROM A PUNT.

Now that we have got the gun

and punt together, a few more words as to the shooting: those who fancy

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that any one can shoot well into a large flock of fowl, will find themselves in a mistake. There is, I must repeat, much more knack in it than people are, at first, aware of; and, in my humble opinion, it is far more difficult than to kill double shots at game; because the man, who can quickly pitch his gun on, or just before, a partridge, has so little variation in distance, as the birds are generally from twenty to forty yards off, that without any further calculation, or practice, he might, in a slovenly manner, contrive to knock down the greater part of those at which he fires. But, in the other shooting, the different calculations of elevation, &c., are tenfold more difficult; and particularly if taking flying shots, at perhaps one hundred yards, from a boat that is rolling and pitching in a sea, and where one inch in aim might make the difference of twenty fowl at a shot, or not touching a feather. All this, however, is best gained by practice, though it may be right to caution the beginner against mismanagement, that might unjustly put him out of conceit with his gun.

In sitting shots, he must (as I before observed, and cannot too often repeat,) remember, at long distances, to preserve a little elevation for his gun; and further, a good elevation for the birds springing at the flash, and perhaps being up before the shot has time to reach them.

On going to either hoopers or geese, he will, nine times in ten, have notice by the birds themselves when he is to fire, as they, previously to taking wing, draw closer together and set their heads up; so that he may keep on, even if it were to within forty yards, till they give the signal. And if at night (which is

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