272 FEATHERED GAME 
sick of running away and so allow the gunner 
to get within range and end it all. They are 
not very difficult of approach as compared with 
the average of our ducks and their big cousins, 
the Canadas. The smaller flocks are ordin- 
arily more readily approached than the large 
ones—a general rule in all such bay gunning. 
We in the north of the Gulf of Maine see 
few of these migrants at either season, but the 
brant slayer of Cape Cod is more favored of 
the gods. Not only has he a hundred birds 
where we have one, but no weary toil at the 
“‘seull oar’’ is his, for the Cape is about the last 
stopping place of their migration and here they 
plan to rest and ‘‘take in ballast,’’ as the gun- 
ners name their habit of filling their crops with 
sand, 
When the flights strike there, usually the lat- 
ter part of April or the first of May, the wise 
gunner has his small ‘‘shanty’’ erected near 
the beach, a sink box set in the sands on a con- 
venient point near high water mark, and if no 
natural bar is there he proceeds to build one a 
fair gunshot away from the sink and just high 
enough to be above the lift of the tide. Here 
his live decoys may disport and enjoy them- 
