SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 4l0 



tomed skiff, twelve or thirteen feet long, decked over, 

 with a combing about the cockpit, which is large enough 

 to hold one, or at most, two persons, and an anchor 

 rope, long enough to enable the boat to ride freely, and 

 with the anchor at one end and at the other a buoy, with 

 an eye fastened into it, and a light painter ten or twelve 

 feet long, which has a snap at the free extremity. Be- 

 side this, fastened to the snap is a light line, a little 

 longer than the painter and the distance from the bow 

 where the painter is fastened to the cockpit. This line 

 is made fast to the boat, just within the cockpit, and 

 runs to the snap on the painter, to which also it is made 

 fast. Thus, when the anchor is out and the painter 

 snapped to the eye in the buoy, this last can be 

 brought alongside by pulling on the light line. The 

 painter can then be unsnapped, the boat freed and the 

 buoy left floating on the water. This not only saves the 

 trouble of lifting the anchor at frequent intervals, but 

 the buoy left in place holds the gunner's position in the 

 line, which nobody will attempt to occupy. 



Ducking in line is a communal form of sport. The 

 gunners of a locality agree all to go out on a certain day, 

 and unless fifteen or twenty boats go, it is useless to 

 make the start. The boats range themselves in a line 

 off shore, from some headland or point which sep- 

 arates two bays in which the ducks commonly feed. 

 The first boat is placed two or three hundred yards 

 from the shore, the next one a hundred yards outside 

 of that, the next still further out, until the twenty boats, 

 extending out from the point, make a cordon of gun- 



