largest bags are taken.

Fair weather is not as a rule favorable weather for shore bird shooting, the shore bird seeming to be putting in his best efforts to leave as many miles as possible behind him, under fair weather conditions.

When the weather is

thick and foggy, however, with a strong southeast wind on the Atlantic shore, the shore bird shooter burns the most powder, for the birds, tired out by the opposing winds and urged by instinct to keep near the shore, rather than to plough their way blindly through the thickening fogs, are present upon their feeding grounds in large numbers.

For the New York gunner, the south shore of Long Island, and some portions of the Jersey coast, notably Barnegat Bay, are the most easily accessible. The Jersey coast, however, for reasons above given, is rather fought shy of by the migrating bird. The south shore of Long Island suits him better. This coast, for many miles, is but thinly settled, and the miles upon miles of beach along the sand dunes that form the breakwater to Long Island, afford them excellent feeding grounds. While the smoke of the factory, however, is not present on the Long Island shore to frighten his shore-birdship, the easy accessibility of this coast from New York has made it the resort of hundreds of gunners during the season, and what the factory chimney has not accomplished, the batteries of the gunners have, to an almost equal extent. That section of coast which is furthest away from the thickly settled community, and which is therefore more difficult for the gunner to reach, offers, of course, the best opportunities and the best. results for the gunner. Consequently, the best shooting that is to be had between Chesapeake Bay and the coast of Maine, is unquestionably found along the sandy shores of Cape Cod, from Chatham on the southern extreme, to Provincetown on the north.

This is the first bit of shore that the birds strike after leaving the coast of Maine. Fighting shy of the thickly settled district south of Portsmouth and along the eastern Massachusetts coast, they take a direct line across the ocean to Cape Cod, and from there follow the shore right down to Rhode Island, thence striking across the sound to the extreme end of Long Island, and thus following the coast as far as Great South Bay.

When the writer, therefore, during the past Summer, determined upon a few days of shore bird shooting, he selected the extreme eastern coast of this great peninsula as his ground for operations, and began to make inquiry as to the best point at which to set out his decoys, and what accommodations he might expect to meet with. As a result, tickets were purchased for the time-honored town of Chatham, which is the last station reached by the southern extension of the Cape Cod division of the Old Colony road. The trip from New York may be an all rail one if desired, but by far the pleasantest route is via Fall River line steamer to Fall River, and thence by rail via Middleboro, to Chatham. Aside from the pleasant anticipations of good sport after reaching one's destination, it is a treat indeed to leave the overpowering heat of a great city, and upon the shady decks of the Puritan or Priscilla, steam around the Battery and up the East River, passing the big Bridge, Blackwell's Island, and Ward's Island, and the many other interesting and picturesque points along the shore, until one enters the broad waters of the Sound. The Fall River Line boats afford perhaps the greatest degree of comfort and luxury that one can find in sea travel anywhere in the world, and the experience of a journey up the Sound, during the hot months of the Summer, even without the luxurious accommodations to be enjoyed upon these boats, is in itself

well worth taking. Fall River is reached at six o'clock in the morning, and after breakfast aboard the boat, one takes the train at 7.20 A. M., immediately at the steamboat landing, and an hour later, is skirting the northern shore of Buzzard's Bay. Upon leaving Buzzard's Bay station, one can easily, from the car windows, see the Summer home of President Cleveland, and the beautiful shores that extend southward from Gray Gables to Woods Hull, and Martha's Vineyard Sound. The road from Buzzard's Bay runs along the shore of Cape Cod Bay, past Sagamore, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Harwich, and the many other popu lar Summer resorts of New England people. Three hours and fifteen minutes after leaving the steamer, the old town of Chatham is reached, and one is driven in a carry-all through its queer old streets to the sandy shore, and thence southward a distance of two miles, to the Chatham Beach Hotel.

Just off the main shore stretches a long sand bar which forms the breakwater of Chatham Harbor, and the carry-all takes the gunner across the ford and on to this sand bar. At a distance of two miles from the ford is the Government life-saving station at Chatham. This station was for some years in charge of Captain Nat. E. Gould, one of the hardiest, most experienced and bravest men in the service. Many years of arduous work and the hardships encountered in patrolling the ice-bound beach of Cape Cod, finally determined the Captain upon relinquishing the exacting conditions of life necessitated by his duties in the service, and, being an ardent sportsman, he conceived the idea of building near the life-saving station, a comfortable hotel, capable of accommodating from thirty to forty guests, and of utilizing the great flats which extended southward therefrom, for the pleasure and accommodation of any and all sportsmen who might be attracted by the

sport which they offered. Consequently, the Captain built the Chatham Beach Hotel, wherein it has been the writer's pleasure to meet some of the most congenial spirits that he has encountered in a long career of many similar journeys. The view down

the beach, as the beach, as one approaches the hotel, while almost desolate in its long stretches of white sand, with here and there an old and weatherworn wreck, is at the same time a most impressive one. The surf here is one of the grandest on the New England coast, and the hotel, without any professions to architectural beauty, comfort and convenience for sportsmen being about the only objects aimed at, fronts the ocean not more than fifty yards from the long line of white-capped combers that break over a beach anywhere from one hundred to two hundred feet in width. No guest ever presented himself at the door of the Chatham Beach Hotel and failed to receive a cheery welcome from the Captain and his good wife, who makes the table at the hotel, and the good things served upon it, her individual and special charge.

The walls, floors and ceilings of the hotel are ceiled in white pine; the beds are scrupulously neat and clean, and while each guest is made his own bell boy, there is nothing in the house that he cannot have if he asks for it, a fact our little party soon discovered after reaching its portals.

We had arrived about noon, and the breeze from the ocean was not only cool, but it was chilly. cool, but it was chilly. The transition from the sun-baked granite blocked pavements of New York was so complete that one could scarcely realize. it, the change from 96 in the shade to 70, being to all of us as unexpected as it was delightful. On arrival, we learned that it would be high tide about four o'clock, and so with plenty of time to unpack our trunks, get on our shooting togs, and enjoy one of Mrs. Gould's wholesome New England dinners, we made no haste

in getting down to the boxes. Two o'clock, however, found us with our guns a-shoulder, and our faces turned away from the hotol, toward the great stretch of shell-covered flats that extend southward toward Monomoy Island.

Our guide to the boxes was "Natty," the irrepressible young nephew of Captain Gould, and we were not long in discovering that Natty, while only fairly into his teens, was one of the enjoyable and amusing, as well as one of the most valuable institutions at Chatham Beach. There is probably not a foot of ground that this hardy and steelmuscled youngster does not know. During the winter months he is earnestly engaged in laying the foundation for an education, at school in Harwich, but the moment school closes in July, Natty hangs his store clothes on the peg, and hies himself away to the flats and Chatham Beach Hotel. Here, from four o'clock in the morning, at which hour he is down on the flats, shoveling out the accumulated water from the boxes, and sprinkling the floors with dry, white sand for the comfort of the guests, until seven o'clock at night, when he trudges back to the hotel as enthusiastic and pleased as the most successful sportsman, over the big bags of shore birds that he is lugging home, Natty is here, there and everywhere, flying from one box to another, offering suggestions, schooling the novice in the art of shore bird killing, complimenting this, and criticising that sportsman on the shots that brought down, or did not bring down, the birds he has called in, and doing his utmost to impart his broad knowledge of the sport to each and every one of the guests of his uncle's hostelry. How many miles a day Natty travels it is difficult to tell. We doubted if it has ever occurred to him, but it must be many miles, so many, indeed, that more than one visiting sportsman has declared that he would not follow

Natty Gould over those flats for a single day, not for the newest $100 note that was ever printed. There is no question but that with Natty crouched down behind the seaweed blind, many a sportsman has pulled in birds that he never would have gotten in the world, both from the fact that Natty has called them in, and has at the same time, by his running sotto voce comments, imbued the gunner with a degree of confidence in his own skill at long range, that he would never have had but for Natty's presence and Natty's words. Here comes two," Natty will say; "they are so far off that I can't tell just what they be, but I think they're beetles. Yes! No, by thunder, they're willets! You can get them, they're the foolishest birds that fly."

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Now, many a man would take this bit of jolly on Natty's part with a very big grain of doubt as to Natty's true estimate of his ability; whether or not Natty meant that the gunner was in luck at having such an easy mark before him, or whether Natty in his inmost heart believed that he was incapable of bringing down anything but the "foolishest birds." Be that as it may, the bird must either be deaf or blind who passes that box without at least swerving out of his course, and within range, at Natty's call.

"Natty, without the hotel, would be sufficient inducement for me to go to the beach," remarked an old patron of the Chatham Beach flats, as we wandered down to our boxes one afternoon, "but the hotel without Natty would lose all attraction for

from the hotel, and from No. I the boxes stretch down the beach from five hundred to six hundred yards apart, almost to the extreme end of the bar, until from the last box, one can catch sight of Monomoy Island, which is another very popular feeding ground for the shore bird. Boxes No. 3 and 4 fell to our lot, and "Natty" having thrown out the puddle of water in box No. 3, and sprinkled more fresh sand over the bottom, we took our seats on the little shelf along one side of the box, which is nothing more nor less than a big dry goods box capable of comfortably seating two men. When

at the edge of the tide in search of the feed of which they are fondest, knowing that it is but a matter of time when the tide will force them within range of our guns. Besides, we do not care to lay the foundation of our day's bag with such as these. Suddenly from the north, we see four or five big birds; they come skimming along with wonderful strength of wing, and we know from their broad sweep and the speed at which they are going, that they are game well worth our shot. It does not take a very practiced eye to see that they are either "beetle-heads" or "brown-backs;" the distance is just a little too far to distinguish accurately, but we know that whatever they are, we want them. Along they come, fully three hundred yards towards tide water from our box, and now our efforts at calling begin. To the first few calls, the birds pay no attention whatever; they seem not to

As

balance of the party waved us a goodbye, and took their departure for the boxes further on down the beach. the figures of the disappearing sportsmen grow smaller and smaller on the horizon, we jump into our boxes, stow away in the white sand at the bottom our flask of fresh water, our pipes and our matches, and shoving some shells into our guns, pull our hats over our eyes and scan the edge of the water, four or five hundred yards away. We can see a little line