BAY-SNIPE SHOOTING. 91 
ing flock, which is the most exciting, as it is often 
the most successful shot. 
The powder should be coarse; the large grain of 
the ducking-powder being alone fitted to withstand 
the deleterious effects of the moisture that is an inva- 
riable concomitant of the salt atmosphere of the 
ocean. 
One great difficulty that the writer has encoun- 
tered in preparing this work, is a proper selection of 
names—the natural history of our country is popu- 
larly so little understood; to copy English names 
and apply them to creatures bearing a faint resem- 
blance in general coloring, though neither in habits 
nor scientific distinctions, was so natural to the first 
immigrants, and the introduction of a proper appel- 
lation is so nearly impossible, that the confusion in 
nomenclature of our birds, beasts, and fishes is hardly 
surprising. This confusion existing in every depart- 
ment of natural history—confounding fish of all vari- 
eties, leaving birds nameless, or giving them too 
many names—culminates among the bay-snipe. 
Although the bony-fish or mossbunkers of New 
York become the menhaden of the Eastern States, 
and king-fish are transformed into barb in New 
Jersey, and perch become pickerel in the west— 
there are rarely more than two names, and every 
fish has some designation ; but with bay-snipe, after 
an infinite multiplication of names for certain species, 
others are left entirely unnamed. Many that are 
frequently killed are without a popular designation, 
and more still are called frost-birds, and meadow- 
