GREY GOOSE
MICHAEL BRATBY

GEOFFREY BLES: LONDON
1939

First edition
A classic account of punt gunning around the shores of Great Britain. The author regularly shot with Peter Scott who provides the pen and ink illustrations for the book.

GREY GOOSE is the name of the punt in which Mr Bratby discovered the difficult and exciting sport of goose and duck shooting. In this book he gives much useful information about the sport and tells of his own experiences in Norfolk and the Wash, in Westmorland and elsewhere. He discusses each species of wildfowl to be found in this country in large and in detail. Yet the book is no treatise on ornithology. It is the highly diverting account of a modern Colonel Hawker's adventures.

He is a keen photographer and sixteen of his studies are here reproduced. The fellow enthusiast who has shared in many of Mr Bratby's exploits is the well known painter of wildfowl, Peter Scott, who contributes a frontispiece and also many decorations as tailpieces to the various chapters.

Author's Preface
This book has been written with the object of entertaining those people who love wildfowl and wildfowling. I have tried to avoid repeating anything I have read elsewhere, and, for that reason, it cannot be compared with any of the great works which have from time to time appeared, and which give thorough instructions to all wildfowlers and punt gunners.
I have purposely omitted to give any directions to punt gunners as to what clothes to wear, what guns to use, how to work their punts and where to shoot. These things they will discover better for themselves. The relative merits of the various sizes of shot, types of powder and bores of guns have often been discussed by experts, and the results of their experiments are in the standard books.
The punting stories I have included, because it is to these stories that I always turn first when I read wildfowling books, and I hope there may be other people who feel the same way about them. The characters who appear in the stories, Peter, John, the Baron, Brian, and others, are real people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for the fun we have had together.

CONTENTS
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
THE THEORY OF PUNT GUNNING
IN PRAISE OF PUNTING
PUNTING——FACTS AND FALLACIES
GREY GOOSE AND KAZARKA
A GOOSE MARSH
GREYLAG GOOSE
PUNTING TO GREYLAGS
PINK-FOOTED GOOSE
PUNTING AT PINKFEET
WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE
BEAN GOOSE
BRENT GOOSE
PUNTING AT BRENTS
BARNACLE GOOSE
PUNTING AT BARNACLES
CANADA GOOSE
MALLARD
PUNTING TO MALLARDS
WIGEON
PUNTING AT WIGEON
WIGEON—A BOXING DAY ADVENTURE
TEAL
PINTAIL
SHOVELER
WILDFOWL IN CAPTIVITY
RARE AVES

22 x 18 cm. 234 pp + colour frontis and 16 b/w plates.

Good condition. Cloth foxed on the spine and mottled along the fore-edge. A few spots of foxing to the pages but overall clean and tidy. Binding sound, all plates present.