184 MONTAUK POINT. 
total for the day of sixty plover and one bass. We 
sink to sleep that night with the proud conscious- 
ness that our first day’s plover-shooting has been a 
great success; our heart prays silently for a con- 
tinuance of our good fortune, and we indulge in 
sweet thoughts of home, and the pleasure our return 
laden with spoils will cause, when our friends greet 
us and them at the social board. 
The next day is as delightful ; the sweet, thrilling 
music again fills the air at short intervals; again our 
trusty breech-loader sends its charge into the thick- 
est of the “ brown,” or cuts down the straggler look- 
ing for “former companions all vanished and gone.” 
Again we call the swift-travelling flock from the 
very zenith, or whistle our lips into a blister, endea- 
voring to attract the wary knowing ones that pause 
to look, only to flee the faster; and the night finds 
us with a still larger bag, but without a bass. So 
eager have we become, so fearful that we should lose 
a shot, and judging by the accumulating clouds in 
the east that on the morrow it may storm, that we 
stay out all day, except the necessary moments for 
our meals, and give no thought to the monsters of 
the deep. : 
Nor were we mistaken; the morrow comes, the 
gathering storm has broken, and no creature of 
mortal mould can face its fury—at least no bird, 
with any pretensions to common sense or respecta- 
bility, would imperil his plumes by an unnecessary 
exposure to such an ordeal. So with forced patience, 
we get through the live-long day as best we can; 
