GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 23 



visits to what should he the paradise of hoth ducks 

 and sportsmen. They all know and regret the 

 diminution of wild fowl, and most of them are satis- 

 fied from what cause it arises ; but as the immediate 

 losses from a change would fall upon themselves 

 heavily at first, they shrink from decided action. 



If, however, the birds are to be retained, and pre- 

 vented from gradually withdrawing, year after year, 

 until they shall desert us in toto, the use of the bat- 

 tery must be prevented. When that is done, we shall 

 soon again have such days as we once had in and 

 about old Raccoon Beach, when sportsmen innume- 

 rable collected to welcome the advent of their prey ; 

 when the tale and song filled up the long evenings, 

 and the ducks quacked their hosannas at early dawn ; 

 when every point was occupied by a happy sports- 

 man, and every boat came home loaded with game. 



The use of pivot-guns is another reprehensible 

 practice that has been so earnestly condemned, even 

 among market-gunners, that it has been in a great 

 measure abandoned. Still, however, in some quiet 

 bay of one of the great lakes of the West, where 

 there is no one to observe the iniquity, or of a moon- 

 light night on the Chesapeake, the poaching mur- 

 derer, sculling his boat down upon an unsuspicious 

 flock crowded together 'and feeding or asleep, will 

 discharge a pound or two of coarse shot from his 

 diminutive cannon ; and wounding hundreds, will 

 kill scores of ducks at the one fatal discharge. The 

 noise, however, reverberating over land and water, 

 scatters the tidings of the guilty act far and wide : 



