and the Maritime Provinces. 359 



ing on his stronghold, the difficulty of making good shooting will naturally 

 be considerably enhanced, for there is no standing still whilst the birds are 

 driven to you, and you have to look out for two things : your safe footing in 

 a treacherous bog, and your game. Snipe frequent queer places at times, 

 places that border so closely on civilization and traffic, that one would 

 hardly expect to find such essentially wild birds in them." 



Chatham and its neighborhood is the favorite locality for shore-bird 

 shooting, but good success is often had in the large extent of marshes 

 between Newburyport and Ipswich. Canada or wild goose and brant 

 shooting from stands are enthusiastically followed by a large number of 

 gunners. These, as well as coot shooting from boats, are fully described 

 elsewhere in this volume. 



The systematic methods followed in stand-shooting of black ducks is 

 well described in the following, which was written by a sportsman after a 

 visit to a famous ducking stand owned by Mr. Charles M. Bryant. 



The "camp," " hut," or " shanty," by either of which not very eupho- 

 nious names it is the custom to speak of the house (although its appoint- 

 ments, both interior and exterior, are anything but those which such a 

 name might imply), is located on the shore of a beautiful pond or fresh- 

 water lake in the town of Weymouth, perhaps a mile and a quarter long 

 and three quarters of a mile in width. The shores are densely wooded 

 for the most part, a sand and gravel beach extending around the entire 

 circumference except here and there a trifle of swale ground. 



The " camp " or " stand " is at the southerly side on a wooded point 

 making out into the lake. Back from the water's edge, say twenty feet, is 

 a stockade fence, perhaps five feet high and one hundred or more feet 

 long, built in crescent shape, the convex side facing the lake, and this is 

 trimmed on the lake side with pine boughs, the branches extending above 

 the top of the fence to shield a man's head from view, yet open enough to 

 afford observation from within ; port-holes through the boughs facilitate 

 vision. Some fifteen feet back from the fence is the house or " cabin," a 

 long, low structure, thirty by fourteen feet, and six feet stud, with a gently 

 pitched roof, stained the color of the surrounding foliage, this being ad- 

 mirably designed by its owner for its use. 



It contains three rooms. A living room, with lockers upholstered with 

 leather (for no chairs are allowed), a sleeping room fitted with spring bunks, 

 similar to those in the staterooms of a Sound steamer, and a kitchen with 

 end partitioned off for an ice chest and provision room. 



In the rear of the cabin the ground rises sharply, studded with a 

 heavy growth of stately oaks and thick underbrush, to a high elevation, 

 commanding a magnificent view of the surrounding country. 



The roof and sides of the cabin are " brushed up," as it is termed, 



