IN CALIFORNIA MARSHES. 465 



boat. Great numbers of fowl are killed annually, for 

 here the shooting lasts for five months or more. It is 

 a wintering ground where the fowl come to stay, and 

 being so extensive, it is possible to change the gunning 

 grounds frequently, and so to keep the shooting good. 



In the narrow leads which intersect the marsh, scull- 

 ing is done in a boat of peculiar construction, which 

 has been evolved by the gunners on these marshes, and 

 is built only by them. They are speedy vessels which 

 can be propelled very swiftly by a long, flexible sculling 

 oar, and their advance is absolutely noiseless, so that 

 the skillful sculler can approach very close to the fowl. 

 As the boats are built for use by a single man only, the 

 gunner sculls and shoots as well. 



Besides the fowl shooting to be had here, there are 

 many patches of snipe marsh, over which, in the dull 

 hours of the day, the gunner can tramp with not a 

 little benefit to his bag. 



Some notion of the abundance and variety of wild- 

 fowl found in the California marshes may be had from 

 an account which is printed here substantially as it ap- 

 peared in Forest and Stream in the year 1882. It 

 treats of the abundance of birds in the marshes near 

 the head of Suisun Bay, the extreme northern end of 

 San Francisco Bay. 



Phantom Pond, though within fifty miles of the city 

 of San Francisco, had, up to that time, been shot on 

 by very few men. A great many persons knew of the 

 existence of the pond, but as it was small, and was situ- 

 ated on an island some fifteen miles long by from one to 



