288 DUCK SHOOTING. 



the sloop's stern shoved around with a pole, until she 

 lay broadside to the sea, when the centreboard was 

 dropped, to hold her there. This made a lee for the 

 battery, and it was launched over the side. It was so 

 rough that the battery could not carry the iron duck 

 decoys when clear of the boat. So seven of them 

 weighing twenty-five pounds each were lowered into 

 the stool boat, followed by my eight and ten gauge 

 guns in rubber covers, with two rubber bags contain- 

 ing shells for the guns. Then I threw in the old 

 gunning coat for a pillow, and the rubber blanket 

 for the bottom of the box, and taking the battery 

 in tow of the stool boat, using the anchor rope of 

 the head fender for a tow line, we succeeded after 

 twenty minutes' hard poling in reaching the seaweed 

 bunk. 



A seaweed bunk is nothing more than a large mass 

 of seaweed, worked together by the tides until it forms 

 almost an island which may vary from ten to fifty feet 

 across, with the top a few inches below the surface. 

 Our bunk we found a good one, thirty or more feet 

 wide and forming a splendid shelter for the battery. It 

 was the work of only a few minutes to throw the head 

 fender anchor under the lee of the bunk, straighten 

 the battery down wind, and drop the tail stone. Guns 

 and traps were put in the box and the decoys thrown 

 out. We were using eighty brant with a single bat- 

 tery, seven or eight decoys were dropped across to 

 windward of the head fender, and a double line down 

 each side of the battery, close enough together to 



