210 lewis' AMERICAN SPOETSMAN". 



SHOOTING RAILS. 



The sport attending the destruction of Rails is exciting and 

 exhilarating in the extreme, but perhaps more fatiguing and 

 less beneficial to health than any other kind of shooting ; it is 

 carried on in this wise : — 



Being furnished with a small, flat-bottomed canoe, and a 

 good broad-shouldered boatman yclept " pusher," from the 

 peculiar duty that he performs in propelling the batteau through 

 the reeds, by means of a long pole, the Sportsman stations 

 himself on the Rail ground, and anxiously awaits the coming 

 of the tide. The water having risen to a sufficient height to 

 allow the passage of the boat through or over the reeds, the 

 Shooter places himself in the bow of the little craft, surrounded 

 by all the necessary paraphernalia for loading with expedition 

 and safety, and, being ever on the qui vive, knocks the poor 

 Birds down right and left as they rise a few yards before the 

 boat, as it gently glides among the reeds. 



It is better to take along two double-barrelled guns, for when 

 the Birds get up lively, it will be necessary to load and fire so 

 constantly that the gun will soon become too hot to handle or 

 load without danger, and the chambers and barrels will get so 

 clogged with powder, and leaded with shot, that it will be almost 

 impossible to load with the necessary expedition. It will also 

 be proper to provide yourself with a good stout ramrod, which 

 can be handled with facility, and thrown down any place in the 

 boat without fear of being broken. To prevent accidents, and 

 insure rapidity in loading — upon which latter circumstance the 

 grand result of the day's sport almost entirely depends, even 

 with a moderately good shot — it is absolutely necessary to be 

 provided with shot cartridges, which, together with the caps 

 and powder may be placed in a handy box, and set on the bow 

 of the boat directly in front of us. The kind of box we gene- 

 rally make use of is made of tin, about twelve inches in length, 

 six in width, and five in depth ; it is divided into two equal 

 compartments — one for powder, and the other for shot or car- 

 tridges ; and the latter apartment has a small shelf or division 

 at one end of it, sufficiently large to hold a quantity of caps, 



