BRANT SHOOTING. 299 



but there are no "flats," no points where boxes can be 

 planted and successfully worked ; the water is too deep, 

 the shore too bluff, and the brant feed only at low tide. 

 A box might be placed on the feeding ground, and 

 operated for a short time during each low tide, but the 

 depth of water in the immediate vicinity would prevent 

 the recovery of cripples, an important item in brant 

 shooting ; and, moreover, all our experience teaches us 

 that shooting at these birds on their feeding ground 

 soon drives them to other quarters, from which they 

 would never return. The same conclusion was arrived 

 at on examining the harbor of Nantucket. It will be 

 found, even at Chatham, that before any shooting can 

 be done, a vast amount of hard work is to be performed. 

 The feeding grounds and flats are so far from the town 

 that living there is not practicable, and a shanty or 

 house must be built on the island. Boxes are to be 

 made, pens constructed for holding the live decoys, and 

 a well dug for fresh water. This ''well" arrangement 

 is a curiosity to the uninitiated. The island, where the 

 shanty is located, is not over two hundred yards wide, 

 but of undulating surface, i. e., composed of little hill- 

 ocks and valleys or basins. If a hole three feet deep be 

 dug in one of these basins, and a common flour barrel 

 inserted, it will, on the flood tide, partially fill with 

 pure, soft water, and will continue to rise and fall with 

 each tide. The reason of this is that rain falls upon 

 this porous sand and percolates till it reaches salt water, 

 which, being of greater specific gravity, holds or buoys 

 up the fresh water. 



