In the estimation of many people, all those who for any purpose or in
any manner hunt ducks are grouped together and indiscriminately called
duck hunters. This is a very superficial way of dealing with an
important subject. In point of fact, the objects of duck shooting and
its methods of enjoyment are so various, and the disposition and
personal characteristics of those who engage in it present such strong
contrasts, that a recognition of their differences should suggest the
subdivision of this group into distinct and well-defined sections. Such
a subdivision would undoubtedly promote fairness and justice, and lead
to a better understanding of the general topic.
There are those whose only claim to a place among duck hunters is based
upon the fact that they shoot ducks for the market. No duck is safe from
their pursuit in any place, either by day or night. Not a particle of
sportsmanlike spirit enters into this pursuit, and the idea never enters
their minds that a duck has any rights that a hunter is bound to
respect. The killing they do amounts to bald assassination--to murder
for the sake of money. All fair-minded men must agree that duck
hunters of this sort should be segregated from all others and placed in
a section by themselves. They are the market shooters.
There are others claiming a place in the duck-hunting group, who, though
not so murderously inclined as the market shooters, have such peculiar
traits and such distinctive habits of thought and action, as abundantly
justify placing them also in a classification of their own. These are
the hunters who rarely miss a duck, but whose deadly aim affords them
gratification only in so far as it is a prelude to duck mortality, and
who are happy or discontented as their heap of dead is large or small.
They have smothered the keen delights of imagination which should be the
cheering concomitants of the most reputable grade of duck hunting, and
have surrendered its pleasures to actual results and the force of
external circumstances. Their stories of inordinate killing are
frequently heard, and often enliven the pages of sporting magazines.
There can be but little doubt that this contingent give unintentional
support to a popular belief, originating in the market shooters'
operations, that duck shooting is a relentlessly bloody affair. These
are the dead shots among duck hunters.