WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 343 



on their very feeding grounds, where most they desire to 

 bo quiet and unmolested, as in the end, if long persisted 

 in, to make them entirely abandon the flats on ■which it is 

 practised, and betake themselves to other and safer local- 

 ities. 



For this reason the use of these batteries has been 

 generally prohibited by law ; but on Long Island, as all 

 other statutory provisions for the protection of game, this 

 salutary enactment is utterly disregarded, and the birds 

 are decimated daily throughout the season, where they 

 ought to be the most protected, and are accordingly be- 

 coming annually fewer, wilder, and less easy of access. 



On the Jersey waters of Squam Beach, Barnegat, 

 greater and lesser Egg Harbor, and other places of equal 

 resort by wild fowl, the use of these destructive machines 

 is proscribed by public opinion of the gunners themselves ; 

 and these men being a bold, hardy, lawless, and some say, 

 half-piratical race, half-fowlers, half-fishermen, and more 

 than half-wreckers, who are apt to enforce the laws of their 

 own enactment by the strong hand and with the aid of their 

 Queen Anne's muskets and a handful of heavy shot ; the 

 prohibition of batteries, as also of sail-boats provided with 

 swivels, is on the whole enforced with tolerable regularity. 



On the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, the law again 

 provides against the use of batteries, as also of sail-boats, 

 and punts with swivels ; but here also it is the strong hand 

 of the lawful and sportsmanlike gunners which alone carries 

 out and vindicates the operation of the law ; and it is not 

 without desperate, and at times even bloody affrays, that the 

 poachers are prevented from carrying on their ruinous trade. 



