290 TRAP-SHOOTING. 
wants of the sportsman, whether in the field or at the 
trap; who break his dogs, carry his bag, or tend his 
birds ; with their quaint wisdom and innate honesty, 
—deserve more consideration than they receive: but 
above all, in trap-shooting, are they a necessity, 
and is their uprightness above price? An unfair 
trapper may give one man strong birds, and another 
weak; may pull their wing-feathers, or keep some 
without water or food, and thus almost decide a 
contest beforehand. 
Their labor is excessive ; they have first to catch 
the birds, and attend to their arrival at the place of 
shooting early enough to meet the sportsmen ; and 
then they have to run eighteen or twenty-one yards 
over the uneven and often muddy ground for every 
bird they place in the trap. Hence, in selecting a 
place to shoot pigeons, it is desirable, by avoid- 
ing sand or soft earth, to save the trapper; under 
the most favorable circumstance, he will soon be 
exhausted, and with every advantage, cannot trap 
more than five hundred birds in a day. Two birds 
are released, either together or successively, ere the 
traps are replenished; the trapper, carrymg two 
birds, runs to the traps, sets one after the other, and 
returns also on the run—for the marksman by this 
time is at the score—and selects two more birds 
from the box; this labor, continued during the noon- 
tide hours of a blazing day, is not over-remunerated 
by liberal pay and the surplus birds, that, unless 
claimed by the shooter, fall by common consent to 
the share of his hard-working assistant. 
