GAME AND ITS PROTECTION". 155 



tice. Wild fowl must be allowed to rest at night; 

 indeed, the same might be said of most other ani- 

 mals, including the human family. If they are 

 not, they will inevitably wend their way elsewhere. 

 The discharge of one shot at night, with its accom- 

 paniment of flame, and its noise reverberating 

 more horribly in the still and silent hours, will do 

 more to frighten away the marsh ducks than any 

 amount of daylight shooting. As the night begins 

 to fall, the fowl begin to seek the marshes. They 

 rise from the open water where they have been 

 resting, perhaps without being able to feed at all, 

 and move towards the shore, coming on in a steady 

 unbroken flight, until they have all found nesting 

 and feeding grounds in the shoal water. Drive 

 them from such places in the night, and there will 

 be no shooting during the day. 



The use of pivot-guns is another reprehensible 

 practice that has been so earnestly condemned, even 

 among market-gunners, that it has been in a great 

 measure abandoned. Still, however, in some quiet 

 bay of one of the great lakes of the West, where 

 there is no one to observe the iniquity, or of a moon- 

 light night on the Chesapeake, the poaching mur- 

 derer, sculling his boat clown upon an imsuspicious 

 flock crowded together and feeding or asleep, will 

 discharge a pound or two of coarse shot from his 

 diminutive cannon ; and wounding hundreds, will 

 kill scores of ducks at the one fatal discharge. The 

 noise, ho\vever, reverberating over land and vrater, 

 scatters the tidings of the guilty act far and wide ; 



