284 DUCK SHOOTING. 



outfit, which usually consists of a single battery with 

 from seventy-five to eighty brant decoys, or a 

 double battery with ninety to one hundred. Some 

 gunners do not use so many brant decoys, and fill out 

 with duck decoys. 



"When the flight of brant starts for the beach the 

 birds will continue to fly during the greater part of the 

 ebb, or until all those that have been living on that 

 shoal have come in, but they have a bad habit, ac- 

 quired in the South, of rising high in the air to see what 

 lies beyond the decoys they are approaching, and in this 

 \\ay they are very likely to discover the poor wretch 

 in the box, who, in his efforts to get lower down out of 

 sight, is trying to shove himself through the bottom of 

 the battery. 



"Young birds, which can be recognized by the scat- 

 tering white spots under the wings, are not so sus- 

 picious and decoy much better. When a flock does 

 come in well, an experienced gunner will usually wait 

 until the birds lap — as is their habit — and as many as 

 eleven have been killed by two barrels. 



"The old eel-grass on the shoals will often collect un- 

 til it forms almost a small island with the top just below 

 the surface of the water. These are called by the gun- 

 ners seaweed bunks, and vary in size, some being only 

 large enough to protect the battery, and make a lee for 

 it, while others are fifty or sixty feet across. When a 

 bunk makes up on a good brant shoal, the gunner who 

 rigs out under it may remain in his battery, even if it 

 should come on to blow heavily, when a battery could 



