312 SHORE BIRDS 



call the birds. This requires constant practice in the 

 field, and the proficiency with which one can execute 

 the call is about the measure of his success at golden- 

 plover shooting. It is the easiest thing in the world to 

 make a mistake in setting out the decoys which shall 

 cost you half your birds. You do not want the wind 

 to blow across your blind to the decoys or across the 

 decoys toward your blind. The decoys must be at 

 one side of the blind. Suppose the wind is blowing 

 from the east to the west, you put out your decoys to 

 the north of your blind and not to the east or west. 

 The decoys should be set out in a longish line, rather 

 wedge-shaped, point down the wind and all at easy 

 gun-range — not too close. Hearing the call the birds 

 swing, cross over and come up wind to alight among 

 the decoys. 



The same writer advises the sportsman not to fire at 

 the leading birds, but at the " middle-oblique " of the 

 flock, when the charge will rake the flock. As the 

 remnant double up, he says, the second barrel held till 

 the right time goes far toward completing the work. 

 At the sound of his deceitful whistle the birds will 

 often return again to the decoys, and twenty, thirty, or 

 forty birds may fall to your gun from one flock. If 

 you get only six or eight, your friend and possible com- 

 panion, the market-gunner, would laugh at you. Two 

 hundred in a day, 1,000 in a week — you can do this in 

 Northern Illinois even to-day if you have the natural 

 heart for butchery. 



I have already advised the shooting for single birds 

 when shooting at a flock of bay birds, and the same 

 shot should be made by sportsmen at golden plover 



