434 DUCK SHOOTING. 



for a battery cannot live in anything like a sea. In 

 places like Great South Bay, however, where there 

 may be two or three feet of grass on the bottom, and 

 then two feet of water over that, a battery can live in 

 what is commonly known as a two-reef breeze. This 

 is a famous place for battery shooting, and here the 

 decoys are commonly set on the water somewhat in 

 the shape of a pear. 



The battery lies near the larger end of this pear, and 

 to the right-hand side looking toward its smaller end. 

 As a result of this mode of rigging — the gunner's head 

 being to windward and the stand of decoys being wid- 

 est where he is, and tapering off to a point to leeward — 

 the birds, as they come up, will swing to where the de- 

 coys are thickest on the water; that is, to the left of 

 the gunner, and will thus always give him an oppor- 

 tunity to shoot to the left. Most men shoot from the 

 right shoulder, and, of course, this arrangement gives 

 them the best possible chance. A man who shoots from 

 the left shoulder will naturally have his battery on the 

 left-hand side of the pear, so that the birds would come 

 up to the right, to give him a better opportunity at 

 them. 



Usually in the Great South Bay they use about 125 

 decoys to a single battery, and perhaps 150 or more to 

 a double battery. Of these, twenty-five or more are 

 brant decoys, and these are distributed close about the 

 battery, so that their larger bodies may in a measure 

 conceal it from the flying birds. There is a single row 

 of the brant decoys all about the battery, perhaps seven 



