574 DUCK SHOOTING. 



skiff, but removable at pleasure, a sled, with runners 

 on each side, on which the skiff can be set. Then, by- 

 means of a light, long pole, shod with a small boat- 

 hook, the gunner can rapidly shove himself over the 

 ice in all directions; can visit air-holes, and can have 

 the comfort of being on board his boat the whole time. 

 Short uprights on the sides of the sled may fit against 

 two narrow cleats tacked on either side of the skiff; 

 or slight protuberances on the runners of the sled may 

 fit into slight hollows in the bottom of the skiff, the 

 weight of the boat and its load always keeping the 

 skiff firm on the sled. Or, on the same light skiff, may 

 be tacked shoes running nearly the whole length of the 

 bottom on either side and provided with runners of 

 half-round steel. 



With an arrangement of this kind, we have known 

 men to cross ten or twelve miles of dangerous broad- 

 waters with little exertion, and with absolutely 

 no danger, where days of the hardest kind of work 

 would not have brought a gunning skiff across, and 

 where the men would have been obliged constantly to 

 leave the boat, and expose themselves at least to the 

 danger of getting wet, if not of drowning. 



While these narrow and light skiffs will not carry 

 a great load, they are large enough to hold a couple of 

 men, their guns and ammunition, and a few decoys. 

 They should be used only in ice work, however, as they 

 are so frail and cranky that they would not, live in 

 rough waters. On some of the southern broad- waters, 

 in Maryland, Virginia and North and South Carolina, 



