150 The Wild-Fowlers 



* Well, is it unsportsmanlike this bat- 

 tery shooting as you read me in the 

 chapters from Frank Forester and Robert 

 Roosevelt ?" laughed Doctor Bradley. 



'Yes, I think it is," replied Seth; 

 ' but I want to add that it 's no boy's 

 play to get the game. It 's far from 

 being easy work to kill in the battery. 

 The water and the sky-line, the immense 

 open space and the clear atmosphere, tend 

 to deceive you in the matter of distance. 

 The ducks appear to be fully half as near 

 to you as they really are, and a tyro at 

 the play would certainly shoot before the 

 proper moment, as I invariably did the 

 first full hour this morning. The shoot- 

 ing is quite as honorable, I think, as any 

 sort of game shooting. The only un- 

 sportsmanlike feature in the method is 

 the fact that the battery, and conse- 

 quently its occupants, the shooters, are 

 located directly on the fowls' feeding- 

 grounds. I would rather shoot from a 

 point while the game is on its way or 



