SHOOTING IN THE ICE. 457 



the larger rivers, notably the Delaware. In this, large 

 guns are used, and the sport is practiced chiefly by 

 market' gunners, who ship their game to Philadelphia 

 daily. 



Concerning this method of killing ducks, the late 

 C. S. Wescott, of Philadelphia, wrote many years ago : 



I knew of but two or three amateurs that regularly 

 indulged in this sport, and had always looked on it as a 

 murderous method of wildfowling. The tales of my 

 enthusiastic friends, however, led me to make trial of 

 it, and I engaged the services of one of the most noted 

 professional paddlers who followed the river. This 

 was in the month of March. 



Owing to the great amount of ice that had formed 

 that year on the tributaries of the Delaware and the 

 upper river during the winter, and the sudden breaking 

 up, I believed that we should have good shooting, for 

 already the fowl had been reported from below as hav- 

 ing arrived. The continued drifting of huge masses 

 and fields of ice at each ebb and flow of the tide, and the 

 extensive bodies of ice collected on the flats of the New 

 Jersey and Delaware shores from Marcus Hook to 

 Bombay Hook, made ice shooting more dangerous that 

 spring than it had been for many years. 



The skiffs used for this description of duck shooting 

 are light, double-end, fifteen-foot, clinker-built boats, 

 such as rail are shot from, but are somewhat strength- 

 ened by being sheathed with copper where the surfaces 

 are presented to the floating ice, and are also provided 



