CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 535 



Pursuing Wild-fowl in Boats. 



The use of boats in chasing wild-fowl and in shooting at 

 them on their feeding grounds always results in driving them 

 away, and wherever this is practiced continually the birds 

 become scarce. This practice and night shooting have been 

 responsible, in part, for the disappearance of most wild-fowl 

 from the ponds and rivers of the interior of Massachusetts, 

 and from certain bays and harbors along the coast, and so 

 long as it is continued, we cannot expect numbers of wild-fowl 

 to remain in such places during the shooting season. This 

 fact was recognized early in the history of Massachusetts, 

 and a law to prevent it was enacted in 1710; but this lapsed 

 after the revolution. 



The practice of shooting wild-fowl from sailboats is an 

 exhilarating sport, and often is quite successful with sea-fowl 

 in a stiff breeze and a choppy sea. Sometimes the birds are 

 slow to leave the water under such conditions. They are 

 obliged to rise against the wind, and if the boat is sailed down 

 wind in approaching them they must rise toward it, and so 

 give the gunner in a fast-sailing boat a close shot. I have 

 driven a small sloop in a squall within a few feet of a Red- 

 breasted Merganser. The excitement of handling the boat 

 skilfully and smartly, snatching the gun at the right moment 

 and shooting accurately from the unstable shifting deck, the 

 tension necessitated in steering, the swift and accurate sweep 

 down the tossing seas to pick up the dead birds — all tend to 

 make this a sport for men. Nevertheless, nothing will so 

 surely drive birds away from their feeding grounds, except 

 chasing them with power boats. The use of sailboats, row- 

 boats and canoes on ponds and rivers in pursuing and shooting 

 at Ducks has a similar effect. On the other hand, a reasonable 

 amount of shooting from the shore will not disturb them much 

 if they are not pursued. It is largely due to a recognition 

 of this fact, and to a special law prohibiting the pursuit of 

 wild-fowl in boats, that Martha's Vineyard has now the 

 best duck -shooting in Massachusetts. Formerly the gunners 

 themselves observed an unwritten law forbidding the pursuit of 



