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CHAPTER VIII. 
WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 
Ir is not proposed to give any extended account 
of wild-fowl shooting as practised on the waters of 
Long Island, or in the neighborhood of the great 
Northern cities; the unsportsmanlike modes of 
proceeding which are there in vogue, and which, 
while contravening all true ideas of sport, insult com- 
mon sense by the ruthless injury they inflict, have 
been fully set forth by other writers. 
In stationing a battery—that imitation coffin, 
which should be a veritable one, if justice had its 
way, to every man who enters it—and in lying prone 
in it through the cold days of winter, the market- 
man may find his pecuniary profit, but the gentleman 
can receive no pleasure ; while the permanent injury 
inflicted by driving away the ducks from their feed- 
ing-grounds, and making them timorous of stop- 
ping at allin waters from any and all portions of 
which unseen foes may arise, is ten times as great 
as the temporary advantage gained ; and as for calling 
that sport, which is merely the wearisome endur-. 
ance of cold and tedium to obtain game that might be 
killed more handsomely, and in the long run more 
abundantly, by other methods, is an entire misappli 
cation of the word. 
