BAY SHOOTING. 116 



tamest and most tedious of sports, waiting at stands for Deer 

 always excepted. 



All wild-fowl shooting, with that one exception — sailing for 

 Brant — must be executed by ambush, not by pursuit ; and, not 

 being patient, to me lying in ambush is an insufferable bore, 

 whether the result is to be the getting a hundred shots at Sand- 

 pipers and Plovers, or one at a great terrified Hart or Hind. 



To those who are fond of this sort of thing, however, the mode 

 to be pursued, for which there are abundant opportunities, and 

 excellent grounds everywhere, from Cape May to Montauk 

 Point, and again in Boston Bay, is to sally forth at the fitting 

 period of the tide, to conceal themselves either in a boat moored 

 in a niche scooped out of a mud bank, or behind a screen of 

 sedge on a salt marsh, near some one of the little ponds which 

 abound in such locations, and having set out anumber of wooden 

 decoys, shaped and painted like the various kinds of shore birds, 

 as if they were feeding in the marshes, or wading in the little 

 pools, to await the approach of the flocks. 



These, as the tide gradually rises, and successively covers the 

 various feeding grounds which they frequent, begin to fly in 

 great numbers ; and as they pass the various leads or passages 

 between the salt meadow islets, are lured down by the gunners, 

 who possess rare skill in imitating the cry or whistle of every 

 separate species, to the vicinity of the decoys, or stools, as they 

 ai'e technically called, over which they will hover within fifteen 

 or twenty yards of the shooter's ambush, and among which they 

 will sometimes alight, and begin to feed, unconscious of the de- 

 ceit. In order to render this more artful, some gunners are used 

 to set up the dead birds which they have shot, by the aid of small 

 sticks, among the decoys, or to tether a wing-tipped bird to a 

 peg among them, in order to call down his passing comrades. 



Some of the species are whistled much more easily, and come 

 down more readily than others ; but the proficiency which some 

 of the men obtain in the art of deceiving, and calling down the 

 various Sandpipers and Plovers, is very striking, and with a 

 good man, such as John Verity, Jem Smith's boys, the Raynors, 



