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of making an artificial island by means of a few boatloads of rubbish is far better. Curlews always remain on the highest ground, and do not leave it until the tide reaches their legs, so that by proceeding in a punt and using great caution, a good shot may sometimes be made. A variation of this plan is to lie in ambush on the island and shoot the birds as they approach it, recovering those dropped in the water by means of the punt.

Punters have usually a great antipathy to VOL. IV shore gunners, who often spoil their best sport, for just as they are approaching fowl, and almost within range, the report of a shoulder gun on the shore puts up the birds and spoils the shot. Shore shooters, on the other hand, have a similar dislike to the sound of a punt gun, although if they happen to be to leeward of the fowl shot at, they may sometimes profit by the occasion and get several shots at birds which, alarmed at the report, come scurrying down wind in their direction. ،، The fact is that in this pursuit, as in every other kind of sport, there must be a certain amount of toleration. No sportsman worthy of the name would intentionally spoil another's sport, and a shore shooter, on perceiving a puntsman "setting" or sculling" to fowl which he himself cannot possibly reach, should be chivalrous enough not to fire until the other has had his shot.

His virtue will not unlikely be rewarded; for by watching through his glasses the movements of the punter, and noting the direction taken by the shore birds which he disturbs and does not fire at, when after duck or widgeon, the long-shore gunner may get many a chance at birds which would otherwise go away unnoticed by him.

Calling Birds. One of the most useful accomplishments of a shore shooter is to be able to imitate the notes of such birds as plover, curlew, whimbrel, knot, and redshank, so as to entice them within shot, and to acquire this needs some practice. The plan is for the shooter to listen to one of these birds calling, and "to tune his merry note unto the wild bird's throat." If he has an ear for music he will at once get the right pitch, and a little practice will enable him to deceive even the wary curlew.

Young birds are more easily decoyed in this way than old, and single birds which have wandered from their companions will come to a whistle, when a flock will pass on unheeding it. Should the flock, however, be composed of a lot of young birds, as is frequently the case in August and September, particularly with knots and godwits, which are more gregarious than redshanks and greenshanks, an imitation of the call note will bring them within shot; and, should several be dropped at the first discharge, if they are left for a time on the ground, or in the water, the remainder of the flock will wheel round and pass close to them, giving another chance to the expectant gunner.

Guns. The choice of a gun for shore shooting, on any given occasion, will depend upon whether the shooter is going to walk about all day in the salt marsh or along shore, whether he is going to lie behind a sea-wall, or spend half his time in a punt.

In the former case, he will find a good stout 12-bore, weighing about 74 lb., sufficiently useful for his purpose, and not too heavy to carry all day; in the latter case, if he is accustomed to the use of a heavy shoulder gun, he may have an 8-bore or a 10-bore behind the sea-wall, or a 4-bore in the punt as well as a 12-bore, using the heavier weapon for a big shot at curlews, godwits, or plover, and the lighter one for single shots at birds passing within moderate range. Nothing is more disappointing at first use of a heavy shoulder gun than the frequent misses which occur from slowness of swing. For want of practice the heavy gun is not brought up quickly enough, aligned quickly enough, nor swung sufficiently ahead of the passing bird; the result is that the bulk of the charge passes behind it, and unless a pellet or two should happen to strike it in the right place, the bird gets away and is soon lost to sight.

Many persons seem to be under the impression that for shore shooting a heavy gun is indispensable, but this is really not the case. With an ordinary 12-bore, weighing 74 lb., the present writer has killed curlew, whimbrel, godwits, redshanks, greenshanks, golden and grey plover, peewits, knots, and all the smaller sandpipers which are commonly to be found about the mouths of rivers and tidal harbours at low water, or in the salt marshes adjacent to the sea, besides ducks of various kinds at flight time, once a brent goose (one of three that came in shore), and on another occasion two wild swans. The fact is that with ordinary care in stalking, or with luck in getting near the birds (for one sometimes drops upon them unexpectedly within range) there is no reason why a properly loaded 12-bore should not effectually stop any shore bird that one is likely to come across.

Loads. There is perhaps no question upon which opinions differ so much as upon the proper charges for guns. Experience has proved that most guns will shoot better with one size of shot than with another, and the best load for a particular gun should be carefully ascertained by experiment.

When once discovered, it should never be varied if sport be the only object. But when the shore shooter is also a collector, and is desirous of securing good specimens of particular species, the charge used must be accommodated to circumstances.

No one would think of shooting a little stint with No. 5, or of firing at a strong flying curlew with snipe shot. The use of breechloaders nowadays, amongst all but professional fowlers in remote fishing villages, makes it so easy to substitute one cartridge [SHOOTING for another in case of need that it is unnecessary to dilate upon this subject further.

Care of Guns. - To keep rust from guns used on or near the sea, there is nothing so good as vaseline applied with a soft toothbrush. If caught in the rain or drenched with spray from a boat, the wet should not be wiped off unless it is thoroughly done, and more vaseline applied when the barrels are dry. On getting home, the barrels should be taken off and every drop of wet should be wiped off; stock, barrels, and fore-end should all be well rubbed with a vaseline rag, and not put together again until wanted. The inside of the barrels, after being cleaned out, should be dressed with a mixture of paraffin and spirits of turpentine, half and half, and the next morning well polished with a strip of flannel rolled round the cleaning rod. If the gun is to be used again that day, superfluous vaseline may be wiped off lightly and the remaining film will protect the metal from the day's exposure.

For the stock of a gun a soft rag dipped in a little linseed is the best of all applications. Shooting Boots. - The foot-gear of a shore shooter must depend every day upon the nature of the ground to be visited. For wet, marshy ground there is nothing like a pair of long boots; not such as are made in London, for they are seldom waterproof and very expensive, but such as are made at a seaport like Great Yarmouth by a bootmaker who works for the fishermen, and who knows that if he cannot make his boots water-tight they are of no use and will not sell. They cost from thirty to thirty-five shillings.

After use they should be thoroughly washed in warm water with a brush, then dried with a rough cloth, and, while the leather is still warm from the contact with hot water, they should be well rubbed with vaseline; not lightly smeared over, but thoroughly rubbed in with the hand, the leather being well kneaded and so rendered pliable. The result of such treatment is that the next time they are worn, instead of being hard and galling to the feet, they draw on like a glove, and the shooter, wearing thick woollen stockings, feels comfortable all day. Boots thus treated (whether long boots or lace boots) will last for years, and it is advisable to have two pairs of each in use, so as not to have to wear the same pair two days running. There will then always be time to get them thoroughly dried. A good plan for drying boots is not to put them near the fire, which makes them hard, but to fill them with oats made hot in the oven. By giving the boots a thump After Archibald Thorburn.

SHORE BIRDS.

SHOOTING] or two and manipulating them a little, the oats will settle down and act as a boot-tree, with the additional advantage of absorbing any moisture there may be inside.

If the day is to be spent along the sands or on a shingle beach, long boots obviously would be a mistake, and would be very fatiguing. Over such ground lace boots answer best, with canvas anklets to keep out the shingle.

In a punt, shoes are more convenient, as being easier to put off and on, when one has to slip out on a mud flat or sand bank to pick up shot birds that have fallen beyond reach of the punt, or to shove the punt over land from one creek to another, to save time when birds have shifted their quarters.

Mud-pattens are always useful things to have in a punt in case one has to get out on soft ooze which will not bear one's weight without them.

They may be simply made of two pieces of flat board on which the boot is placed, holes being bored on either side of toe and heel to allow of a cord passing through and tying across instep and ankle.

Or MUD-PATTEN. they may be constructed more elaborately of 1-in. board as in the annexed figure, the centre and cross pieces being 24-in. broad, the side pieces somewhat narrower, the patten being adjusted to the boot with cord as in the other plan. The middle cross piece should be cut somewhat shorter on the inside to prevent its striking the ankle of the other foot. In either case a little care is needed to prevent mishap, for unless each foot is put down flat, the mud will at once work over the edge and cause the wearer to trip and perhaps fall, an event too unpleasant in its consequences to be risked.

Should the shooter hire a punt from a professional fowler, he may be able to borrow a pair of mud-pattens at the same time, and so save himself the trouble of making and carrying his own.

Cleaning Birds and Care of Specimens. -If the sportsman be also a collector, or is desirous of taking home specimens with him in as clean a condition as possible for preservation, it is as well to know how to proceed. Too often the birds are thrown together in a heap at the bottom of a punt, or are carried about all day in a capacious pocket, or game bag, or tied by the necks and thrown down anywhere when the next chance of a shot presents itself, no one of which plans is to be commended.

If a bird, when shot, has fallen in the THE TATE LIBRARY, BRIXTON, S.W. water, or on dry sand or shingle, well and good; but it will often happen with shore birds that they drop on soft ooze, where, if only winged, they will run and flutter and get considerably soiled with mud. This must be washed off sooner or later if the specimen be intended for preservation, and it is as well to do it as soon as possible before the mud or the blood has time to dry and stain.

When obliged to wash a bird, the collector will find it an advantage to use salt and water, instead of plain water, for the salt prevents the solution of the blood globules, and consequent diffusion of the red hæmaglobin. The specimen then being clean and dry, a plug of cotton wool should be inserted in the mouth, and the beak tied to prevent the saliva from oozing out and staining the feathers. The bird is then dropped head first into a cone of paper, which causes all the feathers to lie in the right direction, and the larger end of the cone being turned over, the specimen is kept clean and in good order until the time comes for skinning it.

This method of treatment gives very little trouble, and will make all the difference in the appearance of a bird if it is intended to be preserved and mounted.

J. E. HARTING.

Bibliography. John Worledge on Agriculture, Ist edition, 1668; La Caccia dell' Arcobugio, V.

Bonfadini (Ferrara), 1652, (Bologna), 1678; Pteriplegia, poem, George Markland (Dublin), 1727; The Complete Sportsman, Thomas Fairfax (London), 1770; A Handbook to the Game-Birds, W. R. Ogilvie Grant (E. Lloyd), 1896; Shooting on a Small Income, C. E. Walker (Constable), 1900; Shooting; with Game and Gun-Room Notes, "Blagdon" (Cogswell and Harrison), 1900; The Wildfowler in Scotland, J. G. Millais (Longmans), 1901; Confessions of a Poacher, J. Connell (Pearson), 1901; Broadland Sport, N. Everitt (Everitt), 1902; Ferrets and Ferreting, W. Carnegie and others (Upcott Gill), 1902; Pheasants; their Natural History and Practical Management, 4th edition, W. B. Tegetmeier (Cox), 1904; Partridge Driving, C. E. A. Alington (Murray), 1904; A Shooting Catechism, Colonel R. F. Meysey-Thompson (Arnold), 1905; Game and Foxes, F. W. Millard (Cox), 1906; Practical Game-Preserving, W. Carnegie, "Moorsman" (Upcott Gill), 1906; Practical Wildfowling, 2nd edition, W. F. Fallon (Upcott Gill), 1907; Game and Game-Coverts, John Simpson (Simpkin), 1907; The Game Laws of Ireland, E. C.

Farran (Ponsonby, Dublin), 1907; British Sport, Past and Present, E. D. Cuming (Hodder and Stoughton), 1910; A Manual of the Game- Birds of India, E. W. Oates (Cambridge and Co., Bombay), 1899; Sport in the Low Country of Ceylon, A. Clark (Ferguson, Columbo), 1901; Game, Shore, and Water-Birds of India, Colonel A. le Mesurier (Thacker), 1905; Upland Game-Birds, the American Sportsman's Library, E. Sandys and T. S. Van Dyke (Macmillan), 1903; The Waterfowl Family, the American Sportsman's Library, L. C. Sanford and others (Macmillan), 1903; Feathered Game: A Handbook of the North American Game-Birds, D. W. Huntingdon M 2 (Bickers), 1903; Shooting in China, T. R. Jernigan (Simpkin), 1908; The Gamekeeper's Manual, 3rd edition, Alexander Porter (Douglas, Edinburgh), 1907, An Epitome of the Game-Laws; The Keeper's Book: A Guide to the Duties of a Gamekeeper, A. S. Walker and P. J. Mackie, new edition (Simpkin), 1909; Ten Years of Gamekeeping, Owen Jones (Arnold), 1909; How to Buy a Gun, H. A. Bryden and B. Tozer (Newnes), 1903; Modern Sporting Gunnery, H.

Sharp (Simpkin), 1906; The Breech-Loader, W. W. Greener (Cassell), 1906; The Gun and its Development, W. W. Greener (Cassell), 1907; Modern Rifle-Shooting in Peace, War and Sport, L. R. Tippins (Phillips), 1900; Practical Rifle- Shooting, W. Winans (Putnam's), 1906; The Sporting Rifle: The Shooting of Big and Little Game, W. Winans (Putnam's), 1908; Miniature Rifle-Shooting, L. R. Tippins (Sampson Low), 1903; The Art of Revolver-Shooting, W. Winans (Putnam's), 1901.

SINGLESTICK. - This weapon, as we know it nowadays, is nothing more than a somewhat poor substitute for the light fencing sabre, and there are some among us who are inclined to clamour for its entire abolition; they are not, however, likely to be gratified, as its very cheapness serves as its recommendation to members of many of the minor schools of arms. Singlestick, or cudgel-play, is, moreover, an honest, manly old English sport, which should rather be encouraged than allowed to sink into oblivion; we can trace its progress through the ages of fence side by side with that of its more lordly relative the broadsword; we find it all over civilised Europe in the fifteenth century, and even much earlier used, in conjunction generally with a shield 11 THE GUARD. (From Walker's Defensive Exercises.) of some sort, as the medium of deciding in the lists a difference between two common fellows, who, being persons of low degree, were not permitted to wear swords. A few notable examples have been handed down [SINGLESTICK to us; one being in England in the time of Edward III. between Walter Blowberne and Hamon le Stare, who were nothing better than a pair of thieves who had fallen out CRBBarrett DEMI-MASK. about their booty; while Olivier de la Marche gives us a most accurately detailed account of a similar combat between two tailors named Mahuot and Jacotin Plouvier, which took place at Valenciennes in the presence of Duke Philippe le Bon in the year 1447. These judicial fights were conducted with considerable ceremony, and it was the common belief in those days that the Deity himself interposed to protect the innocent. The lists were carefully prepared, and the two men also, they being clothed in a special costume of dressed leather so tight that it had to be sewn on to their bodies; their hands and feet were bare; their hair was cut close, and the nails of both fingers and toes carefully pared, while a stout gallows at the entrance to the lists was ready for the reception of the vanquished man. When the quarrel was between a man and a woman, the latter had an advantage given to her, she being at large within the "Champ Clos" and armed with a large stone tied up in a cloth, while the man, provided with a club or cudgel, was placed up to his waist in a circular pit. a In the second part of King Henry VI.

Shakespeare gives a similar encounter between Horner, an armourer, and Peter, his apprentice, in which the King himself acts as umpire.

The judicial combat died out; but we find our cudgel in Elizabethan times in the form of the "wafter" of the London 'prentices, sometimes mounted in a handle like that of a sword, and always accompanied by the hand-buckler as a means of defence. The sport, for such it had now become, was called "playing at bucklers."

In the seventeenth century we find but SINGLESTICK] little mention of the cudgel, owing to the paucity of books on such matters, because, although prize-fights were many in those days, and the practical side of the art was sedulously cultivated, the men professionally engaged in it were anything but erudite, and the few fencing books in the English language were the work of enthusiastic amateurs who naturally paid more attention to their own proper weapon, the sword. But when we come to the eighteenth century we see it in the hands of the "gladiating" prize-fighters, such as Figg, Delforce, and others (about whom Captain Godfrey tells us much that is interesting), in company with the backsword, just as much as we see the fencing foil and the small-sword in the hands of the gentlemen. The prize-fights with swords died out about the middle of the last century, but "cudgelling" remained popular, in the west of England, at any rate, until the middle of this present one.

The fair at Purton, in North Wilts, was famous for encounters of this kind; and somewhere about 1820 a butcher named Blackford is recorded as having broken no less than fourteen heads in one day. The Hungerford Revel" was another festive occasion in which cudgel-play, or "backswording," as it was sometimes called, formed a prominent part; and here one Morris Pope, a blacksmith, whose skill was such that he was regarded as Blackford's successor, scored many a victory, and as many as twenty men on each side, representing the counties of Wilts and Somerset, made their appearance. The combatants stripped to their shirts, and their play, which was something analogous to that of the 66 Fig 19.

MEDIUM GUARD. (From The Swordsman.) QUARTE.

German students, was directed principally at the head, on which part alone a hit counted, and not even then unless an inch of blood made its appearance. Donald Walker, in his Defensive Exercises (1840), gives a very clear description of the "backswording" method: the men stood very near together, and the lunge and recover, as we have them, were not in any way recognised.

In the position of guard, "the body is held upright; the head backward; the leg straight; the right arm advanced and nearly straight; the hand opposite the left shoulder.

The left hand grasps a handkerchief, which is tied loosely round the left thigh, and the left elbow is elevated and thrown forward so as to protect the head." Masks, it is SEPTIME.

TIERCE. (From The Swordsman.) SECONDE. clear, were not in general use; but occasionally a sort of demi-mask was employed, which covered the face up to the eyebrows, leaving the upper part of the head exposed.

This old style of "cudgelling" is now quite extinct, and the "singlestick" of today is mainly a medium for learning the management of the light sabre as it appears in our modern fencing rooms. When "on guard," the weapon should be held in such a position as is at once the most secure for defence and the most handy for attack, being also the least fatiguing to the sword arm; and it is clear that this position is either the "medium" or the resting medium," in which latter the hand is lowered a little to allow the pummel to rest on the thigh. 66 The cuts are six in number-two diagonally downwards at the head or shoulders, two diagonally upwards at the legs, and two horizontals at the belly and ribs; but in all well-regulated schools of arms the blow at the inside of the leg is strictly forbidden, on account of its serious consequences; the thrusts are usually delivered with the hand in "pronation." In defence, recourse should be had to the parries of foil play, in which the pupil ought to be well trained before he is allowed to take a stick in his hand at all; thus "Quarte," with its high and low variations, covers everything on the inside, from the top of the head to the hip, and the lower line is protected by "Septime," while all the outside is covered similarly by "Tierce" and "Seconde." Care should be taken to train the pupil in reposting smartly the instant he has stopped the attack with his parry; from quarte the best repostes are over the stick at the right cheek or shoulder, or under it at the right side or leg; and last, but not least, the point, in this case with the hand in "supination." From septime point in supination,” or give a drawing cut at the outside of the leg by reversing the hand, which, if quickly done, is almost impossible to avoid; the repostes from tierce are a cut over the stick at the left cheek, under it at the left side or belly, and the point in pronation, while from seconde the cut should be given at the right cheek, or the point should be delivered over the enemy's stick with the hand in pronation.

The above five illustrations have been reproduced from The Swordsman, by permission of Messrs. Grevel and Co. ALFRED HUTTON.

SKATING. - FIGURE SKATING. International Style. -The International Style of skating differs from the English in so much as, in the former, all the limbs are used, while in the latter they are repressed.

This movement of the limbs tends to give a more naturally graceful appearance, besides making it possible to execute certain difficult figures, which are impossible in the restricted present-day English style.

Figure skating in the International Style was comparatively unknown in England before the National Skating Association of Great Britain (N.S.A.) held the World's Championship meeting at Hengler's Circus in 1898. This was won by Mr. Grenander, the popular Swedish doctor, whose marvellous skill has since charmed the habitués of Prince's Skating Club on many occasions.

In England figure skating is said to date back to the Restoration in the year 1660, when the Royalist exiles returned from