GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 25 



Every one whether the gentleman who, in search 

 of health or pleasure, visits the muddy.,bays or sand- 

 spits of our coast, or the market-gunner who has 

 learnt naught of useful labor for many years but to 

 handle skilfully his heavy double-barrel every one, 

 we say, who pursues wild-fowl, whether for sport or 

 business, is interested in enforcing upon his friends 

 and neighbors the necessity of discontinuing the use 

 of the battery and pivot-gun. Although the results 

 of the day's shooting may be diminished for a time, 

 they will both gain in the long run ; and we shall 

 once more see the crowds of geese, brant, and ducks 

 stretching in interminable lines across the sky ; and 

 have them flying by the points where we hide, or 

 dropping to our stools near by, as plenteously every 

 day as we can now kill them, in exceptional cases, 

 from the battery. When their feeding-grounds are 

 undisturbed, their multitudinous hosts will again 

 cover the waters of our bays, and hold their noisy 

 consultations over the many theories and crotchets 

 which are disputed in duck philosophy. Then the 

 true sportsman will visit his favorite tavern, located 

 conveniently at the edge of the salt meadows, cer- 

 tain, in the proper season, of having fair sport ; and 

 the willing bay-man will again reap rich and per- 

 manent harvests, either for his patron or himself. 



Now a good bag is so rare that gentlemen seldom 

 go to Long Island for duck-shooting, and the inha- 

 bitants lose a valuable custom in consequence ; and 

 although, by selecting a propitious occasion, the 

 market-man sometimes still kills a great number, he 

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