278 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



the utility of this regulation we will not venture an argument. The 

 gentlemen composing these associations no doubt have good reasons 

 for their restriction. We must confess, however, that we see no 

 impropriety nor any thing unsportsmanlike in thus decoying this 

 wary fowl within reach of our guns, more particularly in positions 

 where all other modes of getting at them would surely fail ; but, 

 on the contrary, we have always found a great deal in the sport to 

 admire, as it is not unfrequently attended with a high degree of 

 pleasurable excitement, while witnessing the playful antics of the 

 dog operating so strangely upon his bewildered and silly victims 

 that so soon pay the forfeit of their idle curiosity in death. And, 

 moreover, if we desired to act the part of a sage, we might also 

 draw a pretty moral from the incident, in demonstrating to our 

 brother sportsmen that a foolish and idle curiosity even in the brute 

 creation often results in disastrous consequences to the parties 

 concerned. 



Along some shores on the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers, exclu- 

 sively devoted by their proprietors to toling, the season for this 

 sport continues very late, as the fowl are seldom or never disturbed 

 upon their feeding-grounds far out in the stream, where they 

 take immediate refuge after being fired at and remain in per- 

 fect security till enticed again within gunshot; and this may be 

 accomplished several times during the same day, and the slaughter 

 consequently is often enormous. This method of killing ducks is less 

 injurious in its effects upon the movements of w r ild fowl than any 

 kind of boat-shooting that can be practised, as it never disturbs 

 them on their feeding-grounds, but attacks them only when fool- 

 ishly wandering away from their usual secure haunts. 



The proper and most destructive moment to shoot ducks, when 

 they have been toled, is when they present a side-view. 



Duck-dogs, when behind the blinds along the bay-shore, mark 

 the flight of wild fowl as anxiously as the sportsman himself, and 

 often by their manner give evidence of the approach of ducks 

 before they are observed by those on the watch for them. 



