BATTERIES AND BUSH BLINDS. 605 



and in doing away with those methods of shooting 

 which are most destructive. The time for shooting 

 can be shortened only by cutting off several months 

 from the present season, and it would undoubtedly be 

 for the advantage of all gunners if all the States were 

 to pass laws forbidding the shooting of ducks from 

 February ist to September ist. Such a change would 

 give five months of gunning to people living in the 

 South, but only three months to those who live in the 

 North, an apparent hardship, but one that must be 

 borne. 



BATTERIES AND BUSH BLINDS. 



In order to lessen the destruction of fowl, those 

 methods of gunning which are most destructive should 

 be done away with. One of these destructive modes 

 of gunning is battery shooting. This should be given 

 up, not in order to benefit or to injure any man, or any 

 class of men, but solely in order that fewer birds may 

 be killed. Up to a certain point, wildfowl are able to 

 protect themselves from shore shooters. They can, if 

 they please, sit out in the broad waters, and away from 

 the shore, but they cannot protect themselves from bat- 

 teries placed on their feeding grounds, nor from sail 

 boats which follow them from place to place. The birds 

 must eat, and when they wish to do so they are sure to 

 go to their feeding grounds, and to the decoys anchored 

 there, and so expose themselves to the gunner. In 



