342 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
itself, so that it cannot absolutely sink, but is submerged 
by the weight of the concealed shooter until its edges are 
level with the sea on which it rests. The flat boards or 
margins above described, are covered with sand, pebbles, 
small shells, and sea-weeds, so that it resembles a little 
shoal peering above the water, or a lot of floating wrack 
and trash, and is not suspected by the fowl. 
This treacherous contrivance is moored exactly on the 
flats where the fowl feed, the gunner is conveyed to it in a 
boat by a partner, who, as soon as he is perfectly ensconced 
and invisible, with his heavy guns and ammunition, and 
provided with his fleet of decoys of all kinds and sizes, 
exactly representing all the varieties of fowl which he may 
expect, riding at anchor around him, within half gunshot, 
rows off to a distance, and plies busily about the bays, 
disturbing all the flocks he can discover on the feed, in 
the hope that, as they fly over, they may descry the decoys 
and fly to them. 
When the roar of his confederate’s gun informs him 
that execution has been done, he rows to the spot, gathers 
up the cripples, and withdraws again as before to beat up 
the neighboring flats and shallows for fresh teams of 
victims. 
The slaughter committed from these batteries is often 
prodigious; but so irksome, if not actually painful is the 
cramped position in which the. sportsman is compelled to 
lie, that, to my thinking, it scarcely can be called sport. 
Unsportsmanlike, in one sense, it certainly is to the 
last degree, that it harasses the birds to such an extent, by 
the very fact that they are slain unseen and unsuspecting 
