This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ...of seeing and shooting during a fairly hard winter. Those severe seasons of frost and snow and bitter winds that now and then occur in England gladden a fowler's heart, and he goes out in what is to him favourable weather, whilst other men are sighing over unexercised hunters, or putting by their guns in rack or case till fields and woods are, fr6m their point of view, fit places for sport. A fowler well knows that the more severe a frost may be, and the more biting the north and east winds, the better it is for him, for then are his fowl to be found, and under such conditions will he do well to seek them. Wildfowl generally come with a rush, and, what is more remarkable, go in a hurry too. Here to-day, gone--no one knows whither--to-morrow. The hunting man has his horses, the landlord his pheasants and partridges, the angler his river; their sport is more or less secure; they know where to seek it: but not so with the fowler. All of a sudden, however, his chance appears. The oftscanned thermometer falls to below freezing point; the weathercock veers round from south-west to due east; the opportunity has arrived and must be made the most of while it lasts. Now against the murky snow-charged sky may occasionally be seen flying overland, in strings and bunches, duck and teal, or wedge-shaped skeins of wild geese; whilst at sea, and along the coast and flats, are vast packs of brent geese, calling in wonderful resemblance to hounds in full cry, as they fly restlessly hither and thither till at length they settle to feed in earnest on some isolated bank of ooze. Widgeon, always most eagerly looked for by the fowler, are now to be seen off the shore, floating out at sea during calms, ever and anon rising in the far distance like a cloud from the...