BRANT SHOOTING. 



FROM A BATTERY, 



Brant are shot from batteries in very considerable 

 numbers, and this mode of securing them does not 

 greatly differ from ordinary duck shooting from a 

 battery. There are two principal methods practiced 

 in various places, which means only that for each the 

 battery is set out in a different situation. The com- 

 moner method is called shooting on the tide. The battery 

 is rigged in the usual way on the feeding grounds of 

 the brant, in shoal water under the beach. For a 

 single battery eighty decoys would be used, while for 

 a double battery the number might be increased to a 

 hundred. The decoys are disposed much as in shooting 

 ducks from the battery, as shown in the diagram in 

 the account of that sport. 



Usually, the battery is rigged out near high water. 

 As the tide begins to fall, the brant leave their off-shore 

 grounds and strike in to the beach, in order to be there 

 when the water has become shoal enough for them to 

 feed on the grass growing on the bottom. Sometimes 

 they come in small numbers, in pairs or in bunches of 

 half a dozen to fifteen, and then offer very pretty 

 shooting. At other times they may .come in great 

 bunches of several hundred or a thousand, and puzzle 

 the gunner, who knows that if he shoots at this big 



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