vbl. sb. [f. FOWL v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FOWL; the art or practice of hunting, shooting, or snaring wild fowl.
1413. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton, 1483), IV. xxxvii. § 84. All that is apperteynent to norysshynge of the body withyn is drawen of the erthe, wherfor by erthe I vnderstande alle suche labourers that trauaylen in erynge and sowyng, dykynge and deluynge, in ympyng and plantyng, in pasturynge of beestes, in fysshyng and fowlynge, and alle suche thynges wherby is norysshed mannes sustenaunce.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 132. Owre Spanyardes, because they are ignorant in foulynge, take but fewe.
1663. Pepys, Diary (1875), II. 210. My Lord Hinchingbroke, I am told, hath had a mischance to kill his boy by his birding-piece going off as he was a-fowling.
1743. Bulkeley & Cummins, Voy. S. Seas, 61–2. To-day, being fair Weather, launch’d the Yawl to go a fowling; shot several Geese, Ducks, Shaggs, and Sea-pies.
1879. Dixon, Windsor, I. iv. 38. Exercise in riding and fowling had kept him spare.
2. attrib. and Comb., as fowling-cutter, -net, -pole.
1882. Sir R. Payne Gallwey, Fowler in Irel., Introduction, p. v. Other anxious surmises affecting a *fowling-cutter on the bleak coast of a wide estuary, with bad holding-ground and a lee-shore.
1530. J. Hall, in Weaver, Wells Wills (1890), 114. Xij hangyng and *fowlyng netts.
1810. G. Landt, Descr. Feroe Islands, 241. They are caught with the *fowling-pole and net in the same manner as other birds which frequent the cliffs.
