Early in the season, when there are few birds flying over the points, and the young, tender, and gentle wood-ducks crowd the marshes and will permit an easy approach, it is customary to employ a punter, who poles the boat while the sportsman sits on the forward thwart, gun in hand, ready in a moment to cut down the feeble birds. But if any of the shooting is to be done from the points, the punter will be found in the way, increasing the unsteadiness of the boat and augmenting the danger, already sufficiently great. Although by no means proficient, I always prefer poling myself, and will never permit any guns in the boat but my own.
On the day more particularly referred to in this chapter, we found the birds plentiful, although rather wild, and had grand sport, starting the crying wood-ducks and the quacking mallards from their hiding-places, and killing a goodly number in spite of their sharp ears and strong wings.
Of the particular shots, the numerous misses, the various mishaps, it were vain to tell. A baptism in the shallow bay-water is regarded as a necessary initiation, and not being dangerous, the ceremony is frequently repeated. Good shots are rarer than bad ones, even with the best marksmen, and perhaps the author would have to vindicate truth by telling some awkward blunders of his own, and thus forfeit the reader’s respect for ever. It is sufficient for the reader to recall the best day’s sport at ducks he ever had, to imagine his own shooting considerably improved, his strength and activity augmented, and his promptest deliberation surpassed; and he will have a faint idea of our performance. It is enough to say the birds were there, and we were there.
Towards night we occupied a series of points above the Gap, as it is called--an opening between the island where the house is situated and the land beyond--and waited for the evening flight. The wind had died away, and as the sun was setting, the mallards came in from the lake to pass the night. Innumerable flocks, one after another, appeared from behind the trees, and passing overhead, settled down into the reeds. By twos, threes, or hundreds in a flock, in straight, even lines of battle, or bent like the two sides of a triangle, or in long single file, their wings whistling in the still air, or producing reports like pop-guns as they flirted or touched one another--immense numbers moved over us.