Regency Pastimes: Bat Fowling

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B night Of BAT FOWLING AT FOWLING confifts in taking fuch Birds by as rooft in Bushes Shrubs Hawthorn trees & c The manner is you must be very filent till your Lights are blazing and you may either carry Nets or none as you please if none you must then have long Poles with great bushy tops fixt on them and having lighted your Straw or other blazing matter then beat those Bushes where you think Birds are at Rooft which done if there be any in those Bushes or Trees you will instantly see them fly about the Flames for it is their nature at the strangeness of the Light and ex treme darkness round about it not to depart from it so that those who have the bushy Poles may beat them down as they please and take them up Thus you may continue your sport as long as it is very dark and no longer Cox, N. (1815). The Nobleman and Gentleman’s Recreation. United Kingdom: J. Smeeton.

Mentions of bat fowling appear in Shakespeare, but apparently was a common practice for hunting birds at night (not hunting bats as one may think from the name).

line spheres by whose revolution they were carried about 192 A bat fowling Bat fowling was a method of fowling by night in which the birds were started from their nests and stupefied by a sudden blaze of light Markham in his Hunger's Preuention or the Whole Arte of Fowling says I thinke meete to proceed to Batte fowling which is likewise a nighty taking of all sorts of great and small Birdes which rest not on the earth but on Shrubbes tal Bushes Hathorne trees and other trees and may fitly and most conueniently be used in all woody rough and bushy countries but not in the champaine Cf Browning Red Cotton Nightcap Coun try Bat fowling is all fair with birds at roost Shakespeare, W. (1904). Shakespeare’s Comedy of the Tempest. United States: American Book Company.

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