290 LEWIS'S AMEEICAN SPORTSMAN. 



fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds, increasing from the lesser to 

 the greater amount in proportion to the violence of the elements. 

 Portions of iron pigs are most convenient for ballast. 



When these batteries are intended to be occasionally towed out 

 to their position on the flats, they should be made sharp at the 

 stern or bow by the addition of a false cut-water ; otherwise it will 

 require heavy pulling to get them along. Most, if not all, of those 

 in the hands of the regular bay shooters are made square at the 

 ends, and, thus constituted, answer their purposes perfectly well, 

 for they move them from point to point only by hauling them on 

 board of their large row or sail boats, which convey the whole 

 party on these expeditions. 



On looking at the drawing, several decoy-ducks will be noticed 

 on the platform. The bodies of these ducks are reduced in bulk, or, 

 in other words, are shaved down to one-third of their original thick- 

 ness, and permanently fixed to the deck at suitable intervals, with 

 movable heads, which are slipped on and off at pleasure by the 

 ducker, as he takes his position in the box or retreats from it. 

 The number of decoys set out around the battery is not often less 

 than two hundred, and most generally two hundred and fifty, or 

 even more. Each decoy has a string several feet long attached to 

 it from a loop in the breast, and to the end of each string is tied a 

 small piece of leaden pipe or other convenient metal, or even a 

 fragment of stone sufficiently heavy to anchor the decoy and pre- 

 vent its floating off from its position. 



The arranging or putting out of so great a number of decoys 

 around the battery, on a cool, blustering December morning, is no 

 child's play, we can assure the uninitiated reader, and is only 

 equalled, or rather excelled, in point of discomfiture, by the pro- 

 cess of taking them up again in the evening, when it is necessary 

 to wind the wet and half-frozen strings around each one to prevent 

 entanglement when placed together in the boat.* 



* Decoys made of solid blocks, such as are universally used, can be had of 

 duckers on the bay, if ordered during the idle season, at a moderate price, ranging 

 from twenty to thirty dollars a hundred. 



