BAY-SJSriPE SHOOTING. 91 



ing flock, which is the most exciting, as it is often 

 the most successful shot. 



The powder should be coarse ; the large grain of 

 the ducking-powder being alone fitted to withstand 

 the deleterious efiects of the moisture that is an inva- 

 riable concomitant of the salt atmosphere of the 

 ocean. 



Oae great difficulty that the writer has encoun- 

 tered in preparing this work, is a proper selection of 

 names — the natural history of our country is popu- 

 larly so little understood; to copy English names 

 and apply them to creatures bearing a faint resem- 

 blance in general coloring, though neither in habits 

 nor scientific distinctions, was so natural to the first 

 immigrants, and the introduction of a proper appel- 

 lation is so nearly impossible, that the confusion in 

 nomenclature of our birds, beasts, and fishes is hardly 

 surprising. This confusion existing in every depart- 

 ment of natural history — confounding fish of all vari- 

 eties, leaving birds nameless, or giving them too 

 many names — culminates among the bay-snipe. 



Although the bony-fish or mossbunkers of New 

 York become the menhaden of the Eastern States, 

 and king-fish are transformed into barb in New 

 Jersey, and perch become pickerel in the west — 

 there are rarely more than two names, and every 

 fish has some designation ; but with bay-snipe, after 

 an infinite multiplication of names for certain species, 

 others are left entirely unnamed. Many that are 

 frequently killed are without a popular designation, 

 and more still are called frost-birds, and meadow- 



