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RAIL-SHOOTING. 197 
tide is favorable and the game plenty, the excitement 
is continuous, and increased by a sense of compe- 
tition. 
Other sportsmen are on the same ground, stop- 
ping probably at the same hotel and shooting in 
close proximity—occasionally too close, if they are 
thoughtless or careless. Net only will a charge of 
mustard seed sometimes rattle against the boat, but 
is apt, now and then, to pierce the clothes and pene- 
trate the skin, followed by an irritation of mind and 
body; but when the tide has fallen, and the sport is 
over, a comparison of the bag made by each sports- 
man is inevitable, and no general assertions of round 
numbers will answer, but the birds must be pro- 
duced. It is vain to claim what cannot be exhibited, 
and more than useless to talk of the immense quan- 
tities that were killed but not retrieved; such ex- 
cuses are answered by ridicule, and if the poor shot 
would avoid being a butt, he must be modest and 
submissive. 
There is danger too, at times, although an upset 
in the weeds can result in nothing worse than a wet- 
ting of oneself and one’s ammunition, and the ruin 
of the day’s enjoyment; but I was once on the Dela- 
ware, opposite Chester, when a fierce north-wester 
was blowing, which had driven much of the water out 
of the bay and river. The tide, of course, was poor, 
aving difficulty to rise at all against the gale, which 
kept on increasing every moment, and the birds 
were scarce and difficult to flush. The work of 
poling was laborious; the boats stopped after every 
