330 DUCK SHOOTING. 



Storm was blowing up, and while over the greatest duck 

 pass of the Northwest the long black streamers of the 

 flight were growing thick and thicker. Into the night, 

 over roads made softer by a drizzling rain, we drove, 

 reaching town late, but very well contented. 



Precisely similar to pass shooting is that mode which 

 is sometimes practiced in the East and called bar 

 shooting. 



Less than lOO miles from New York, in the harbor 

 of a New England town, is a little island which at low 

 water is connected with the mainland by a long bar. 

 On either side of this bar are feeding grounds for the 

 ducks, and in autumn, winter and spring the birds at 

 morning and evening fly between the two feeding 

 grounds and so between the island and the mainland. 

 When the tide is low, in the morning or at evening, the 

 gunners often gather on this bar, and, stationing them- 

 selves a gunshot or more apart, wait for the ducks to 

 fly. The birds are chiefly scoters of two or three kinds, 

 old squaws, a few broadbills in spring and always a few 

 whistlers and bufile-heads. Sometimes, if the weather 

 is entirely calm, no birds at all will fly across the bar ; 

 at other times, if it is stormy or foggy, there may be 

 quite a flight — half a dozen flocks of old squaws, as 

 many of coots, one or two small flocks of broadbills and 

 scattering whistlers and dippers, with rarely a black 

 duck. Sometimes the coots, if the breeze is gentle, will 

 fly across at considerable height, too far off to be 

 reached by shot, and then occasionally they may be 



