244 AMERICAN GAME. 
the load is thereby so much the more regularly distrib- 
uted, and so much the more likely to strike the object, 
and that in several places more, in the ratio of three or 
four to one, than could be effected by A’s or B’s. 
Second, as the flesh will constantly close over the wound 
made by a small shot, so as to cause the bleeding to go 
on internally to the engorgement of the tissues and suf- 
focation by hemorrhage; whereas the wound made by 
the large grain will relieve itself by copious bleeding, 
and the bird so injured will oftentimes recover, after 
having fallen evento the surface of the water, or lain 
flapping, as it were, in the death-struggle on the blood- 
stained sand or grassy hassocks. This fact has been well 
noticed, and several examples adduced to prove its 
truth, by Mr. Giraud, in his exceedingly clear and 
correct, though to our taste, far too brief volume on the 
“ Birds of Long Island.” 
For my own use I invariably adopt for all the smaller 
species of duck—as the two varieties of Teal, the 
Summer Duck, the Golden Eye, and the Buffel-headed 
Duck, Anates, Carolinensis, Discors, Sponsa, and Fuli- 
gule, Clangula, and Albeola—the same shot which is 
generally used for the various birds known on our shores 
and rivers as bay-snipe, viz: No. 4 or 5—the latter best 
for the Plovers, the former for duck, whether in large or 
small guns. In this relation I may observe that, on one 
occasion—the only one, by the way, on which I ever 
saw a green-winged teal in the summer season—I killed 
