280 MANUAL FOE YOUNG- SPORTSMEN. 



I am not prepared to say that it is not so ; but it is a 

 serious objection that, when once acquired, this style of 

 shooting is not easily shaken off, but is carried to the 

 upland, where it is of infinite detriment and disservice. 

 It entails a slow, poking, pottering method, utterly in- 

 compatible with quick, dashing, clean shooting, and there- 

 fore, if therefore only, I would eschew it altogether. 



Prodigious slaughter is recorded as having been occa- 

 sionally done upon these migratory tribes : — " a noted 

 gunner," says Mr. Geraud, in his admirable work on the 

 birds of Long Island, '' residing in the vicinity of Bellport, 

 informed me that he killed one hundred and six yellow- 

 legs, by discharging both barrels of his gun into a flock, 

 while they were sitting along the beach. This is a higher 

 number than I should have hit upon, had I been asked to 

 venture an opinion on the result of a very unusually suc- 

 cessful shot. Still it is entitled to credit. Wilson speaks 

 of eighty-five red-breasted snipe being killed at one dis- 

 charge of a musket. Audubon mentions that he was 

 present, when one hundred and twenty-seven were killed 

 by discharging three barrels. Mr. Brasher, during the 

 month of May of last year, at Egg Harbor, killed thirty- 

 three red-breasted snipe, by discharging both barrels into 

 a flock as they were passing him. This number, although 

 small in comparison with those mentioned above, is large, 

 and exceeds any exploit of my own, either with this or the 

 former species — the yellow-leg — of both of which I have 

 killed a goodly number, but do not think it important to 

 tax my memory with the number shot on anyone occasion, to 

 illustrate further the gregarious habits of this familiar bird." 



