THE FOWLER IN IRELAND: Or Notes on the Haunts and Habits of Wildfowl and Seafowl Including Instructions in the Art of Shooting and Capturing them. By Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart.

(1882) 1985 Ashford Press edition. 8vo (142 x 227mm). Ppxiv,503. Plates and text illustrations by C.Whymper and others, pictorial green cloth gilt, gilt titles to spine.

This is Sir Ralph-Gallwey's exhaustive and detailed account of all aspects of wildfowling. Chapters include: Ducks; Mallard, wigeon, teal and others; Decoys (decoy ponds) and their use; Mergansers; Great Northern Divers, Gannets, Cormorants, Shags, Grebes and others; Wild geese; Swans; Plovers, plover netting; Snipe and woodcock, with much material on Ireland; Shore birds - curlews, whimbrels, ibis, avocet and others; Marsh birds - herons, bitterns and rails; The Skellig Rocks and their seafowl; Birds and lighthouses - the Skelligs, Copeland Island, Tuscar Rock, Tory Island, Howth, Old Head of Kinsale, Carlingford, Dundalk, the Blasquets; Birds of prey - eagles, ospreys, kites, buzzards, peregrines, Greenland and Iceland falcons, owls and others; Irish mammals, deer, goats, foxes, martens, stoats and weasels, wild cats, otters, seals and others; Boats - yawls and cutters, punts; Professional fowlers and puntgunning; Two chapters on all aspects of punt guns; Construction of fowling punts.