A Wary Bird 



We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings. 



HAMLET. 



A MAN, to be successful in brant-shooting, must be a, 

 sportsman of the most enthusiastic type and a fair shot. 

 Moreover, he must possess a good constitution, plenty 

 of patience, and plenty of ability to defy cold, wet and 

 exposure. He must expect many disappointments and 

 a great deal of waiting, for the birds are so wary and 

 so seldom deceived it is rarely he will find them within 

 the range of his heaviest charges of powder and shot. 

 When the chance of a shot is obtained and he downs 

 his bird the excitement is over quick as a flash and he 

 wonders how it all happened. Let me describe how it 

 is done. 



During the early spring the guides have sunk boxes 

 large enough to hold three men. The boxes are placed 

 sometimes out on the bay in shallow water, with hun- 

 dreds of wheelbarrowfuls of sand piled around them 

 at low tide, the sand being covered and neatly fas- 

 tened down with a sail cloth, so that the rushing tides 

 cannot carry it away. This is to represent a sand 

 bar. The other plan is to fix the boxes on some jut- 

 ting point of land in the bay, always using plenty of 

 sand, behind which the gunners are to sit with bowed 



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