BAY BIRD SHOOTING 291 



are vanishing so rapidly to try and kill them all at 

 once. I have referred to the legal limitation of the 

 bag to be made in a day, found necessary in many 

 places. 



In Vermont — the bag limit is five birds per diem — 

 a single pot-shot puts an end to a legal day's shooting. 

 In Maine the limit of a day's bag is fifteen birds, ex- 

 cepting sandpipers (which I suppose is a legal blunder 

 for shore birds), where the bag limit is seventy birds. 

 Club rules and regulations govern the bag on many 

 preserves, and it is evidently to the sportsman's inter- 

 est nowadays to select his birds and kill only one at a 

 time. Sportsmanship is, I am pleased to observe, more 

 refined and humane to-day than formerly, and the true 

 sportsman seeks to enjoy the sport with the least pos- 

 sible cruelty, killing his birds clean and wounding as 

 few as possible. The shot at the flock where the birds 

 are closest together is sure to wound a number in addi- 

 tion to those killed outright. 



There may be many varieties of birds in the bag at 

 night. In Massachusetts and elsewhere it is customary 

 to speak of "big" and " little " birds. The curlews, 

 dowitchers, tattlers, golden and black-breasted plovers 

 and some others rank as big birds, and all the smaller 

 plovers, sandpipers, and sanderlings are classed as 

 small birds. 



I am firmly of the opinion that it would be well to 

 draw the line so as to exclude all the little birds from 

 the list of game, with the exception of one or two vari- 

 eties, such as the pectoral sandpipers, which are excel- 

 lent food birds. For my part I do not care to shoot 

 at these. After lively work with canvas-backs, mallards, 



