248 THE SHORE BIRDS OR WADERS 



sandy beaches and follow the receding water in their 

 search for food. The woodcock and the snipe are 

 shot over dogs. The method of capture is not am- 

 bush, but pursuit quite similar to that of the gallina- 

 ceous birds. The upland plover, one of the best table 

 birds on the list, is also taken by pursuit, but the 

 sportsman usually approaches the birds in a vehicle or 

 on horseback, without the aid of dogs, since the birds 

 rely upon flight rather than concealment. All the 

 other shore-birds are taken from ambush, and are shot 

 over decoys, the sport having much resemblance to 

 that of duck shooting. The weather (late summer 

 weather) for this sport is, however, usually fine, quite 

 different from the severe cold and rain, snow and wind, 

 when duck shooting is at its best. The shooting of 

 shore birds is a lazy pastime, not to be compared with 

 the tramp across fields and through the woods behind 

 the thoroughbred setters and pointers, nor with the 

 shooting at the wary swift-flying ducks on the marsh 

 lands. Forester said that sportsmanship proper could 

 not be said to belong to this form of shooting, unless 

 (which few persons do except the professionals) one 

 make and set out his own stools, paddle his own canoe, 

 and whistle his own birds. 



The shore birds are migrants. As the geese, brant, 

 and ducks move northward in the spring, they are 

 followed by the waders, familiarly termed bay-birds 

 or bay-snipe. These birds nest in the far North, 

 and should not be shot in the spring, when their visit 

 is of short duration. They return late in the summer, 

 and were they protected in the spring there would be 

 a vast improvement in the summer and early fall 



