204 DUCK SHOOTING. 



More birds were coming now and the shooting went 

 on briskly as they came up, flock after flock. I made 

 some rank misses that I felt I could explain to myself; 

 but I knew that it would be pretty hard to do so to that 

 dark object sitting in the sharpie on shore, with a 

 powerful pair of field glasses glued to his eyes. 



Forty-seven brant lay in the bottom of the boat when 

 down came the rain in torrents. We tried to stand it 

 long enough to bring the score to fifty, but the shower 

 bath on my upturned face was too much for me, and 

 we reluctantly gave it up and rowed back to the sloop. 

 Those forty-seven noble birds were stowed away, the 

 rig picked up, rubber boots and wet clothing taken off, 

 and with dry clothes, feet in old comfortable slippers, 

 a stiff hot Scotch to take the chill out of the bones, 

 we loaded our pipes and proceeded to talk it all over, 



"Well, what do you think of to-day. Cap?" 



"I would like to have made it fifty," he replied, "but 

 if we do half as well to-morrow I will be satisfied." 



We came near it, but that is another piece of history. 

 The day behind the bunk had always remained my big 

 day at brant, and, with the great increase of batteries 

 and the brant growing wilder each year, I know only 

 too well it will never be duplicated, at least in the 

 Great South Bay. 



BAR SHOOTING. 



At one or two points only, along the Atlantic coast, 

 is brant shooting practiced from boxes on sand-bars 



