POINT SHOOTING. 4^3 



and snappers and terrapin ; of these last there are not 

 many. 



All through the winter, however — except when, as 

 sometimes occurs, a freeze has locked the waters of the 

 sound — there are fish a-plenty. Of course the most im- 

 portant and valuable are chub, which I take to be the 

 large-mouthed black bass; but there are many other 

 smaller sorts which may or may not be good to eat. 

 The common blue crab abounds here in summer, and 

 everywhere on the marsh its shells may be seen — the 

 relics of feasts had by the coons. 



In the spring and the late summer these marshes are 

 the resting places of thousands on thousands of beach 

 birds and rails. Here may be found great flocks of 

 waders of all descriptions, from the tiniest sandpiper 

 up to the great sickle-bill curlew. These sandpipers 

 and rails wade busily about over the mud flats where 

 the ducks have been swimming or probe them for food. 

 Then gulls of many sorts winnow their slow way over 

 the broad channels, and companies of sea swallows hunt 

 the schools of tiny fish that swim in the shallows. 



At whatever season of the year you take it, the life 

 of the marsh is abundant, and is worth observation and 

 study. 



We are told that it is the dying swan that sings the 

 sweetest song. Those that we see about the marsh 

 are musical enough, but so few of them are killed that 

 I cannot believe that the ordinary note which they utter 

 is the one which immediately precedes death. Yet it is 

 a soft, sweet call, high pitched, pleasing and hard to 



