SEA-DUCK SHOOTING 165 



that the latter did not know where to place his blind. 

 A place which affords excellent shooting to-day may be 

 worthless to-morrow, the wind having shifted. Ducks, 

 too, are easily driven away from a given point by much 

 shooting, and the place where many ducks are killed 

 for several days in succession will be readily surren- 

 dered by an old hand to a novice. It is more important 

 to know what the ducks are doing than it is to shoot 

 well, for without the ducks one cannot shoot at all. 

 A bay-man or an old duck shooter will often take a run 

 about the bay to see what places the birds are using 

 and to " locate " them, as it is termed, and time so con- 

 sumed is well spent. An amusing reference to this 

 practice appears in a law prohibiting Sunday shooting 

 in North Carolina, which provides that " it shall be 

 unlawful to sail, row, or propel a boat over Currituck 

 Sound on the Lord's day for the purpose of locating 

 wild fowl for a future day." This law, as I said, writ- 

 ing recently for The Century, may be regarded as the 

 high-water mark of game legislation. It would seem 

 necessary for the sportsman sailing the waters of Curr 

 i-ituck on the Lord's day to close his eyes. 



In many of the States it is now unlawful to shoot at 

 ducks in the night season before " sunrise or after sun- 

 down " as the statutes read. This is as it should be, 

 and the shooting of ducks on Sunday is also prohibited. 

 In North Carolina, where by the way are to be found 

 the finest grounds on the Eastern Coast for sea-ducks, 

 it is unlawful for any person to leave any landing or 

 anchorage before sunrise in the morning for the pur- 

 pose of hunting wild-fowl or to put decoys into the 

 water before sunrise. This law in many places would 



