378 THE WILD-FOWLT.il. 



the men in the yawls pull back to the scow, which remains at anchor 

 some distance apart from the battery, and the fowler is left alone in 

 his operations. The box or interior of the battery is not more than 

 eighteen or twenty inches in depth : but is sufficiently commodious to 

 receive the fowler, and enable him to lie down at full length on the plat- 

 form. In such a position he is almost invisible to every object on the 

 surface of the water : he shoots at the fowl with a large shoulder- 

 piece when they approach and offer a fair chance. 



Sometimes he allows the fowl to alight and swim in among the 

 decoys before shooting ; at others he fires at them on the wing as they 

 fly overhead. The fowler is enabled to load his guns in safety 

 aboard the battery j but immediately after shooting, the men who 

 watch his actions from the deck of the scow, proceed in the 

 yawls to gather up the slain and chase the cripples.* The battery is 

 generally fixed in the evening, and the fowler's sport is sometimes 

 continued throughout the night ; but his best chance is at dawn of 

 day. It is only when the water is smooth that the guards or wash- 

 streaks are turned down level with the surface of the water. On a 

 sudden breeze springing up, or rough water flowing around, the bat- 

 tery is in peril of being sunk ; in which case, in the event of the 

 yawls not being at hand, it becomes necessary for the fowler to throw 

 the iron ballast overboard to lighten his perilous machine and enable 

 it to ride more buoyantly until assistance arrives. 



Taking up the stools and towing the battery, with its ponderous 

 frame and accompaniments, is a work requiring some time in per- 

 formance. Each of the two hundred decoys, with its leaden weight, 

 has to be taken up separately, the cord carefully wound about it, and 

 the whole stowed away in the yawl. There are two occupants to 

 each yawl, one to manage the boat during the process of collecting 

 the decoys, and the other to take them up. The fowler in the bat- 

 tery collects the few dummies which may be near the wings of the 

 machine ; he also turns up the guards, and assists as far as he can 

 in the somewhat tedious operations. 



* " In 1838 a law was passed in this State prohibiting the use of batteries. "For 

 a short time it was respected, but the gunners who depend on water-fowl shooting 

 for a great part of their living considered it such an invasion of their rights, that they 

 defied it : at first shooting with masks, at the same time threatening to shoot the in- 

 former, should one be found. They finally laid aside their masks, and the law be- 

 came a dead letter, and has since been repealed." Field Sports in the United States ; 

 by Frank Forester : 1848. 



